The words, though half nonsense, were the other half cunning, and the tones and looks were piteous.  Meadows hesitated.  Crawley knew too much; to get rid of him was a bait; and after all to annihilate the thing he had been all his life accumulating went against his heart.  He rang the bell.  “Hide the notes, Crawley.  Bring me two shirts, a razor, and a comb.  Crawley, these are the terms.  That you don’t go near that woman—­” Crawley, with a brutal phrase, expressed his delight at the idea of getting rid of her forever.  “That you go at once to the railway.  Station opens to-day.  First train starts in an hour.  Up to London, over to France this evening.”

“I will, sir.  Hurrah! hurrah!” Then Crawley burst into protestations of gratitude which Meadows cut short.  He rang for breakfast, fed his accomplice, gave him a great-coat for his journey, and took the precaution of going with him to the station.  There he shook hands with him and returned to the principal street and entered the bank.

Crawley kept faith, he hugged his treasure to his bosom and sat down waiting for the train.  “Luck is on our side,” thought he; “if this had been open yesterday those two would have come on from Newborough.”

He watched the preparations, they were decorating the locomotive with bouquets and branches.  They did not start punctually, some soi-disant great people had not arrived.  “I will have a dram,” thought Crawley; he went and had three.  Then he came back and as he was standing inspecting the carriages a hand was laid on his shoulder.  He looked round, it was Mr. Wood, a functionary with whom he had often done business.

“Ah, Wood! how d’ye do?  Going to make the first trip?”

“No, sir!  I have business detains me in town.”

“What! a capias, eh?” chuckled Crawley.

“Something of the sort.  There is a friend of yours hard by wants to speak a word to you.”

“Come along, then.  Where is he?”

“This way, sir.”

Crawley followed Wood to the waiting-room, and there on a bench sat Isaac Levi.  Crawley stopped dead short and would have drawn back, but Levi beckoned to a seat near him.  Crawley came walking like an automaton from whose joints the oil had suddenly dried.  With infinite repugnance he took the seat, not liking to refuse before several persons who saw the invitation.  Mr. Wood sat on the other side of him.  “What does it all mean?” thought Crawley, but his cue was to seem indifferent or flattered.

“You have shaved your beard, Mr. Crawley,” said Isaac, in a low tone.

“My beard!  I never had one,” replied Crawley, in the same key.

“Yes, you had when last I saw you—­in the gold mine; you set ruffians to abuse me, sir.”

“Don’t you believe that, Mr. Levi.”

“I saw it and felt it.”

The peculiarity of this situation was, that, the room being full of people, both parties wished, each for his own reason, not to excite general attention, and therefore delivered scarce above a whisper the sort of matter that is generally uttered very loud and excitedly.