betrayer. "Well, Mr. Whitford, and I didn't trust him, and I stuck to
him, or he'd have been after her whining about his coat and stomach,
and talking of his being a moral. He repeats that to everybody."

"She has gone to the station?" said Vernon.

Not a word on that subject was to be won from Crossjay.

"How long since?" Vernon partly addressed Mr. Tramp.

The latter became seized with shivers as he supplied the information
that it might be a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. "But what's
time to me, sir? If I had reglar meals, I should carry a clock in my
inside. I got the rheumatics instead."

"Way there!" Vernon cried, and took the stile at a vault.

"That's what gentlemen can do, who sleeps in their beds warm," moaned
the tramp. "They've no joints."

Vernon handed him a half-crown piece, for he had been of use for once.

"Mr. Whitford, let me come. If you tell me to come I may. Do let me
come," Crossjay begged with great entreaty. "I sha'n't see her for
. . ."

"Be off, quick!" Vernon cut him short and pushed on.

The tramp and Crossjay were audible to him; Crossjay spurning the
consolations of the professional sad man.