d so
resolutely refrained from delaying her departure. She had been gone but
for a few minutes--the lovely and consoling influence of her presence
was still fresh in my heart--I was still looking sadly over the once
precious pages of manuscript which she had restored to me--when Ralph
returned from North Villa. I heard him leaping, rather than running, up
the ricketty wooden stairs. He burst into my room more impetuously than
ever.

"All right!" he said, jumping back to his former place on the bed. "We
can buy Mr. Shopkeeper for anything we like--for nothing at all, if
we choose to be stingy. His innocent daughter has made the best of all
confessions, just at the right time. Basil, my boy, she has left her
father's house!"

"What do you mean?"

"She has eloped to the hospital!"

"Mannion!"

"Yes, Mannion: I have got his letter to her. She is criminated by it,
even past her father's contradiction--and he doesn't stick at a trifle!
But I'll begin at the beginning, and tell you everything. Hang it,
Basil, you look as if I'd brought you bad news instead of good!"

"Never mind how I look, Ralph--pray go on!"

"Well: the first thing I heard, on getting to the house, was that
Sherwin's wife was dying. The servant took in my name: but I thought of
course I shouldn't be admitted. No such thing! I was let in at once, and
the first words this fellow, Sherwin, said to me, were, that his wife
was only ill, that the servants were exaggerating, and that he was quite
ready to hear what Mr. Basil's 'highly-respected' brother (fancy calling
_me_ 'highly-respected!') had to say to him. The fool, however, as
you see, was cunning enough to try civility to begin with. A more
ill-looking human mongrel I never set eyes on! I took the measure of
my man directly, and in two minutes told him exactly what I came for,
without softening a single word."

"And how did he answer you?"

"As I anticipated, by beginning to bluster immediately. I took him down,
just as he swore his second oath. 'Sir,' I said very politely, 'if you
mean to make a cursing and a swearing conference of this, I think it
only fair to inform you before-hand that you are likely to get the worst
of it. When the whole collection of British oaths is exhausted, I
can swear fluently in five foreign languages: I have always made it a
principle to pay back abuse at compound interest, and I don't exaggerate
in saying, that I am quite capable of swearing you out of your senses,