ore you go a step further, that I am engaged to
Louisa, and I can't hear her run down by anyone now. So you may as
well know that first as last."

"Engaged or not," said Sampson, with curious emphasis, "you have got to
hear a thing or two about Louisa Clay to-night."

"If it is bad, I won't hear it," said Jim, clenching his big hand.

"Then you are a greater fool than I took you for; but, look here,
you've got to listen, for it concerns that other girl, the girl you
used to be so mad on, Alison Reed."

Jim's hands slowly unclenched. He turned round and fixed his great
dark eyes with a kind of hungry passion in them on Sampson's face.

"If it has anything to do with Alison I am bound to hear it," he said.

"Then you love her still?" said Sampson, in surprise.

"Love her!" replied Jim; "aye, lad, that I do. I am near mad about
her."

"And yet you are going to marry Louisa Clay."

"So it seems, George, so it seems; but what's the good of talking about
what can't be cured? Alison has thrown me over, and I am promised to
Louisa, and there's an end of it."

"Seems to me much more like that you have thrown Alison over," said
Sampson. "Why, I was in the room that night of the play-acting, and I
saw Alison Reed just by the stairs, looking as beautiful as a picter,
and you come up with that other loud, noisy gel, and you talked to her
werry affectionate, I must say. I heard what she said to you--that
there wasn't a thing in heaven above, or in earth beneath, she wouldn't
do for you. Maybe Alison heard them words too; there's no saying. I
was so mad at what I thought Louisa's falsehood to me, that I cut the
whole concern fast enough. Well, that's not what I have come to talk
on to-night; it is this: I think I have traced the theft of that
five-pound note straight home at last."

"You haven't?" said Jim. "Oh, but that's good news indeed; and Alison
is cleared?"

"She is; but I don't see how it is good news to you, for the theft is
brought home to the gel what is to be your wife in less than a week."

"Nonsense!" said Hardy. "I always said you were too sharp on Louisa.
She aint altogether to my taste, I am bound to confess, although I have
promised her marriage; but she's not a thief. Come, now, you cannot
get me to believe she's as bad as that."

"You listen to me, Hardy, and stay quiet," said Sampson. "I can put
what I know in a few words, and I will. From the very first I
suspected Louisa Clay. She