He answered hotly, and ended by rapping
out with a contemptuous click of the tongue: "Upon my word, Dick, you
look at the whole thing like the tradesman you are!"
These words rankled in Mahony all the way home.--Trust Purdy for not,
in anger, being able to resist giving him a flick on the raw. It made
him feel thankful he was no longer so dependent on this friendship as of
old. Since then he had tasted better things. Now, a woman's heart beat
in sympathetic understanding; there met his, two lips which had never
said an unkind word. He pushed on with a new zest, reaching home about
dawn. And over his young wife's joy at his safe return, he forgot the
shifting moods of his night-journey.
It had, however, this result. Next day Polly found him with his head in
one of the great old shabby black books which, to her mind, spoilt the
neat appearance of the bookshelves. He stood to read, the volume lying
open before him on the top of the cold stove, and was so deeply
engrossed that the store-bell rang twice without his hearing it. When,
reminded that Hempel was absent, he whipped out to answer it, he carried
the volume with him.
Chapter II
But his first treatment of Purdy's wound was also his last. Two nights
later he found the hut deserted; and diligently as he prowled round it
in the moonlight, he could discover no clue to the fate of its
occupants. There was nothing to be done but to head his horse for home
again.
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