“Oh, go! go!” said Mary.  “You will let him go, Doctor Thurnall, and see the poor girl free?  Think how dreadful it must be to be a slave.”

“I will, my little Miss Mary; and for more reasons than you think of.  Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave.”

“Hum!” said Mark Armsworth.  “That’s a queer story.  Tom, have you got the poor fellow’s money?  Didn’t lose it when you were taken by those Tartars?”

“Not I. I wasn’t so green as to carry it with me.  It ought to have been in England six months ago.  My only fear is, it’s not enough.”

“Hum!” said Mark.  “How much more do you think you’ll want?”

“Heaven knows.  There is a thousand dollars; but if she be half as beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may want more than double that.”

“If you do, pay it, and I’ll pay you again.  No, by George!” said Mark, “no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a balance at his bankers’ he let a poor girl—­” and, recollecting Mary’s presence, he finished his sentence by sundry stamps and thumps on the table.

“You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to free all poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia,” said the Doctor.

“Well, what of that?  Them I don’t know of, and so I ain’t responsible for them; but this one I do know of, and so—­there, I can’t argue; but, Tom, if you want the money, you know where to find it.”

“Very good.  By the by—­I forgot it till this moment—­who should come down in the coach with me but the lost John Briggs.”

“He is come too late, then,” said the Doctor.  “His poor father died this morning.”

“Ah! then Briggs knew that he was ill?  That explains the Manfredic mystery and gloom with which he greeted me.”

“I cannot tell.  He has written from time to time, but he has never given any address; so that no one could write in return.”

“He may have known.  He looked very downcast.  Perhaps that explains his cutting me dead.”

“Cut you?” cried Mark.  “I dare say he’s been doing something he’s ashamed of, and don’t want to be recognised.  That fellow has been after no good all this while, I’ll warrant.  I always say he’s connected with the swell mob, or croupier at a gambling-table, or something of that kind.  Don’t you think it’s likely, now?”

Mark was in the habit of so saying for the purpose of tormenting the Doctor, who held stoutly to his old belief, that John Briggs was a very clever man, and would turn up some day as a distinguished literary character.

“Well,” said Tom, “honest or not, he’s thriving; came down inside the coach, dressed in the distinguished foreigner style, with lavender kid gloves, and French boots.”

“Just like a swell pickpocket,” said Mark.  “I always told you so, Thurnall.”

“He had the old Byron collar, and Raphael hair, though.”

“Nasty, effeminate, un-English foppery,” grumbled Mark; “so he may be in the scribbling line after all.”