“Dear Augustus,” he replied, “I thought you would.” Then he dropped my hands, now seriously congested, and stooping down, picked up his umbrella. “And I don’t want you to feel,” he added, “now that I propose to take charge of the work, that your share in it has been unappreciated.” Then we climbed into the omnibus that was to take us to Camberwell and sat side by side in it in silence, parting as usual, however, with a mutual benediction, though I could not conceal from myself that his attitude had disappointed me. For though it would have been inevitable, and indeed desirable, that subsequent to redemption Miss Moonbeam should have met him, this was scarcely the moment, I felt, for the sudden intrusion of a second deliverer. Nor were the nuptials that he had proposed for her other than profoundly distasteful to me, though a glance at my mirror sufficed to reassure me of their extreme unlikelihood. Nevertheless I deemed it wise before retiring to bed to send a brief note to Miss Moonbeam, regretting the pertinacity that would probably result in my being accompanied by Ezekiel, but at the same time indicating that he was not to be dismissed as a wholly valueless acquaintance. “Nor must you forget,” I concluded, “that he is at least the President of the great Union that has brought us together.” A difficult letter, it had needed all the tact that I had been able to summon to its composition, and the clock had struck eleven, I remember, before I was able to open my nightgown bag, preparatory to taking out my nightgown. I was a little pale, therefore, when I arrived at the theatre at six o’clock the next evening, and though fully confident of my ability to control the situation, I was naturally somewhat anxious as to the effect upon Miss Moonbeam of a night’s consideration. Had the latent thirst for a higher life, that my person had aroused in her the night before, been submerged again by wicked companions or quickened by my absence? Had she gone to sleep dreaming of the footlights or of an Anti-Dramatic and Saltatory future? And how had the poor child, reared in sin and ignorance, received the letter that I had been obliged to write to her?