But Robert did not lecture him; he had no fancy for
an office which he did not think himself fitted to
perform.
Robert Audley sat until long after daybreak with the
sick man, who fell into a heavy slumber a short time
after he had finished his story. The old woman
had dozed comfortably throughout her son’s confession.
Phoebe was asleep upon the press bedstead in the room
below; so the young barrister was the only watcher.
He could not sleep; he could only think of the story
he had heard. He could only thank God for his
friend’s preservation, and pray that he might
be able to go to Clara Talboys, and say, “Your
brother still lives, and has been found.”
Phoebe came up-stairs at eight o’clock, ready
to take her place at the sick-bed, and Robert Audley
went away, to get a bed at the Sun Inn. It was
nearly dusk when he awoke out of a long dreamless slumber,
and dressed himself before dining in the little sitting-room,
in which he and George had sat together a few months
before.
The landlord waited upon him at dinner, and told him
that Luke Marks had died at five o’clock that
afternoon. “He went off rather sudden like,”
the man said, “but very quiet.”
Robert Audley wrote a long letter that evening, addressed
to Madame Taylor, care of Monsieur Val, Villebrumeuse;
a long letter in which he told the wretched woman
who had borne so many names, and was to bear a false
one for the rest of her life, the story that the dying
man had told him.
“It may be some comfort to her to hear that
her husband did not perish in his youth by her wicked
hand,” he thought, “if her selfish soul
can hold any sentiment of pity or sorrow for others.”
RESTORED.
Clara Talboys returned to Dorsetshire, to tell her
father that his only son had sailed for Australia
upon the 9th of September, and that it was most probable
he yet lived, and would return to claim the forgiveness
of the father he had never very particularly injured;
except in the matter of having made that terrible
matrimonial mistake which had exercised so fatal an
influence upon his youth.
Mr. Harcourt-Talboys was fairly nonplused. Junius
Brutus had never been placed in such a position as
this, and seeing no way of getting out of this dilemma
by acting after his favorite model, Mr. Talboys was
fain to be natural for once in his life, and to confess
that he had suffered much uneasiness and pain of mind
about his only son since his conversation with Robert
Audley, and that he would be heartily glad to take
his poor boy to his arms, whenever he should return
to England. But when was he likely to return?
and how was he to be communicated with? That
was the question. Robert Audley remembered the
advertisements which he had caused to be inserted
in the Melbourne and Sydney papers. If George
had re-entered either city alive, how was it that no
