They were silent, and Baruch, affecting to study a Rollin’s _Ancient History_, wondered, especially when he called to mind Mrs Caffyn’s report, what this girl’s history could have been. He presently recovered himself, and it occurred to him that he ought to give some reason why he had called. Before, however, he was able to offer any excuse, Clara closed her book. ‘Now, it is right,’ she said, ‘and I am ready.’ Just at that moment Barnes appeared, hot with hurrying. ‘Very sorry, Miss Hopgood, to ask you to stay for a few minutes. I recollected after I left that the doctor particularly wanted those books sent off to-night. I should not like to disappoint him. I have been to the booking-office, and the van will be here in about twenty minutes. If you will make out the invoice and check me, I will pack them.’ ‘I will be off,’ said Madge. ‘The shop will be shut if I do not make haste.’ ‘You are not going alone, are you?’ said Baruch. ‘May I not go with you, and cannot we both come back for your sister?’ ‘It is very kind of you.’ Clara looked up from her desk, watched them as they went out at the door and, for a moment, seemed lost. Barnes turned round. ‘Now, Miss Hopgood.’ She started. ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘_Fabricius_, _J. A._ _Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica in qua continentur_.’ ‘I need not put in the last three words.’ ‘Yes, yes.’ Barnes never liked to be corrected in a title. ‘There’s another _Fabricius Bibliotheca_ or _Bibliographia_. Go on—_Basili opera ad MSS. codices_, 3 vols.’ Clara silently made the entries a little more scholarly. In a quarter of an hour the parcel was ready and Cohen returned. ‘Your sister would not allow me to wait. She met Mrs Marshall; they said they should have something to carry, and that it was not worth while to bring it here. I will walk with you, if you will allow me. We may as well avoid Holborn.’ They turned into Gray’s Inn, and, when they were in comparative quietude, he said,— ‘Any Chartist news?’ and then without waiting for an answer, ‘By the way, who is your friend Dennis?’ ‘He is no particular friend of mine. He is a wood-engraver, and writes also, I believe, for the newspapers.’ ‘He can talk as well as write.’ ‘Yes, he can talk very well.’ ‘Do you not think there was something unreal about what he said?’ ‘I do not believe he is actually insincere. I have noticed that men who write or read much often appear somewhat shadowy.’ ‘How do you account for it?’ ‘What they say is not experience.’ ‘I do not quite understand. A man may think much which can never become an experience in your sense of the word, and be very much in earnest with what he thinks; the thinking is an experience.’ ‘Yes, I suppose so, but it is what a person has gone through which I like to hear. Poor Dennis has suffered much. You are perhaps surprised, but it is true, and when he leaves politics alone he is a different creature.’ ‘I am afraid I must be very uninteresting to you?’