Her fears showed themselves in many ways. When she read of dark and vengeful deeds in her newspaper, she thought of her old master, and how, in such or such an act, his fatal hand might reveal itself. He might lie in wait for Valentine some night on the dark road between Charlottenburgh and the distant railway-station. She could fancy the young wife's agony of terror as the night wore on, and her husband did not return; the unspeakable horror that would come over all that happy household when the news came that its young master had been found on the lonely road slain by some unknown hand. Open utterance to her fears she was too wise to give; but she warned Mr. Hawkehurst of the dangers on that dark road, and besought him to arm himself with a trusty bludgeon wherewith to meet and vanquish any chance assailant. Valentine laughed at her anxious warning; but when Charlotte took up the cry he was fain to content her by the purchase of a sturdy stick, which he swung cheerily to and fro as he walked homewards in the gloaming, planning a chapter in his new book, and composing powerful and eloquent sentences which eluded his mental grasp when he tried to reduce his evening reverie to pen-and-ink. "When the air blows fresh across the common, and the distant lights twinkle, and the bright stars peep out in the pale-yellow sky, my language flows as it never does when I sit at my desk, Lotta," he said to his wife. "I feel myself a Swift or a Junius out there; equal to the tackling of any social question that ever arose upon this earth, from the Wood halfpence to the policy of American taxation, and triennial elections. At home I am only Valentine Hawkehurst, with an ever-present consciousness that so many pages of copy are required from me within a given time, and that my son-and-heir is cutting his teeth, and making more fuss about it than I ever made about _my_ teeth; and that the man about the water-rate is waiting to see me, please, and is desperately anxious about making-up his books; and that I have the dearest wife in Christendom, who opens my door, and puts her pretty head into my room once in half an hour to see how I am getting on, or to ask whether I want any more coals, or to borrow my ink to make-up her washing-book." "You mean, sir, that I prevent your becoming a Junius?" cried Charlotte, with an enchanting _moue_. "Yes, dear. I begin to understand why Swift kept his poor ill-used wife at a respectful distance. She would have made him too happy if he had allowed her to be on the premises. She would have given the cruel indignation no chance of lacerating his heart; and such writing as Swift's is only produced by a man whose heart is so lacerated. No, my darling, I shall never be a Swift or a Junius while your pretty head is thrust into my room once or twice an hour; but I may hope to be something better, if bright eyes can inspire bright thoughts, and innocent smiles give birth to pleasant fancies."