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She almost fell backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag which were wrapped round the vagrant's legs. On the sole of his foot there was a wound.... I turned away. 'A cup of tea wouldn't you bid me get you, my dear? I heard the hostess saying in an obsequious voice. 'What a notion! responded the holy man. 'To indulge the sinful body.... O-ho-ho!
It suited her suited her ever so much better than the sunshine of the South. Yes, she was very English! Puzzling and fretting, he reached his rooms. Ferrand had not arrived, in fact did not turn up that day. His non-appearance afforded Shelton another proof of the delicacy that went hand in hand with the young vagrant's cynicism. In the afternoon he received a note.
Sophy, whose pretty face and well-bred air were not unappreciated, was dismissed early to bed by a sign from her grandfather, and the Comedian then exerted his powers to entertain his visitors, so that even Sir Isaac was soon forgotten. Hard task, by writing, to convey a fair idea of this singular vagrant's pleasant vein.
But come, young sir, if you have time and inclination to share a vagrant's breakfast, I can offer you eggs and new milk, and bread and butter, simple fare, but more wholesome than your French ragouts and highly-seasoned dishes." "You are very kind," said Barnabas, "the ride has made me hungry, besides, I should like to talk with you."
'Have you any oil? said another voice, hardly audible; 'let me put some on the wound.... I have got a clean rag. I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still busied with the vagrant's sore foot.... 'A Magdalen! I thought. 'I'll get it directly, my dear, said the woman, and, coming into my room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the holy picture.
The young Augsburg maiden, whom she thought she had bought out of the flames of purgatory, did not appear to her again, but the vagrant's child came all the more frequently, and whenever she showed herself she wailed and wept bitterly.
Reluctantly and dizzily, as one in a dream, he obeyed, leaving the vagrant's grandchild to be soothed in the fostering arms of her whom, an hour or two ago, he knew but by the titles of her rank and the reputation of her pride. It was not many minutes before Lady Montfort rejoined him. "You touched unawares," said she, "upon the poor child's most anxious cause of sorrow.
He read it through again, and, like a judge, began to weigh what she had written, her thoughts when she was writing, the facts which had led up to this. The vagrant's farewell document had done the business. True to his fatal gift of divesting things of clothing, Ferrand had not vanished without showing up his patron in his proper colours; even to Shelton those colours were made plain.
Even as Ranulph was about to knock and call the poor vagrant's name, the clac-clac stopped, and then there came a sniffing at the shutters as a dog sniffs at the door of a larder. Following the sniffing came a guttural noise of emptiness and desire.
Which of those lives will that visit influence hereafter, the woman's, the child's, the vagrant's? Whose? Probably little that passes now would aid conjecture, or be a visible link in the chain of destiny. A few desultory questions; a few guarded answers; a look or so, a musical syllable or two, exchanged between the lady and the child; a basket bought, or a promise to call again.
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