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Buck was engaged with Alston's basket, which was now on the scales. "Sixty-seven poun's," the overseer called. The slave's heart sank: only four pounds' gain after all his toil early and late! He was bitterly disappointed. He believed the overseer lied. Then his heart burned. Couldn't he leave his basket unemptied, and weigh it himself when the others were gone?
"Three years ago," Hudson went on, "Miss Meredyth was married in secret to a Mr. Hugh Alston " "Hugh Alston, of course bless me, I know of Hugh Alston! Isn't he the son of old George Alston, of Hurst Dormer?" "Yes, that would be the man, sir. Her ladyship speaks of Mr. Alston's house, Hurst Dormer." "That's the man then, that's the man!" said the General, delighted by his own shrewdness.
Would he have a hundred? would she fall behind? Would he be saved the flogging? would she have to suffer in his stead? She dreaded a flogging at the hands of that brutal overseer, and all her womanliness shrunk from the degradation of being stripped and flogged in Alston's presence, or even of having him know that she was to be cowhided. She bethought her of making an appeal to the overseer.
"Tell him that I have no heart to give to him or to any one. Through no effort or fault of mine I overheard Mrs. Alston's words and yours. I know your design against me. Assuage your friend's grief by assuring him of your entire success, of which you are already so well aware.
He began to see many things in a new way, to see some things which he had never perceived before. Among them he saw the fine side of ambition. He respected Alston's determination to win out, to justify his conduct in his father's eyes, and pay back to Mr. Crayford with interest all he had received from that astute, yet not unimaginative, man. He loved the lad for his eagerness.
Some of the ladies who had been Minnie Alston's friends stopped to have a word with Lorry and then swept on making murmurous comment to their escorts the Alston girls were coming out of their shells, beginning at last to take their places; it was a pity they went about with fossils of the Stone Age like Mrs. Kirkham, but they had a queer, old-fashioned streak in them ah, there's a vacant table!
It drew Alston's eyes to the face of his patron. There was a moment of tense silence. In it Claude felt that he was waiting for a verdict that would decide his fate, not as a successful man, but as a self-respecting artist. As he looked at the face of his wife he knew he had not the strength to decide his own fate for himself in accordance with the dictates of the hidden man within him.
It was like a sign following her troubled premonitions, an answer to her anxious queries. If its author had known just how Miss Alston's thoughts had been engaged, she could not have aimed her missile better or timed it more accurately. During the first moment she saw nothing but the central fact the concealed love affair of which the writer thought she was cognizant.
The coffee-house was, nevertheless, pretty well attended. No appearances of alarm until to-day. Several families have removed from the neighbourhood of the Tontine Coffee-house, and five times the number will remove to-morrow. Laight claimed Mr. Alston's promise of Montalto, and I have admitted his pretensions. He will take possession to-morrow or next day.
Holding them in her hand she ran round the table again to throw her arms about Philip Alston's neck the second time, like a happy, excited child. The little white slippers went up with her arms and touched his cheek. And then he drew them down, and clasping her slender wrists, held her out before him and looked at her with fond, smiling eyes.
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