There he trumps up the first story that comes into his head about rents in the country, and a house in Lincolnshire that is too damp for her to trust herself in; and so, leaving her for a few days in London, starts boldly for Darrock Hall.
His notion was to wheedle your mistress out of the money by good behavior; but it seems he started badly by quarreling with her about a fiddle-playing parson--" "Yes, yes, I know all about that part of the story," I broke in, seeing by Mr.Dark's manner that he was likely to speak both ignorantly and impertinently of my mistress's unlucky friend ship for Mr.Meeke.

"Go on to the time when I left my master alone in the Red Room, and tell me what he did between midnight and nine the next morning." "Did ?" said Mr.Dark.

"Why, he went to bed with the unpleasant conviction on his mind that your mistress had found him out, and with no comfort to speak of except what he could get out of the brandy bottle.
He couldn't sleep; and the more he tossed and tumbled, the more certain he felt that his wife intended to have him tried for bigamy.

At last, toward the gray of the morning, he could stand it no longer, and he made up his mind to give the law the slip while he had the chance.

As soon as he was dressed, it struck him that there might be a reward offered for catching him, and he determined to make that slight change in his personal appearance which puzzled the witnesses so much before the magistrate to-day.