For a moment there was silence—a silence so great that the falling of the cinders on to the hearth alone broke the stillness. “Will she reproach me,” he wondered; “will she be angry at best? will she say nothing, and refuse pity to me, though she can give it to every other created being?” “Have you not a word to speak to me, Heather?” he asked at last; and then the tears she had been striving to keep back burst forth, and flinging her arms around his neck, she sobbed out,— “Oh, my love, my love!” and as she lay on his breast Arthur understood that he was to her, in that hour of bitter distress, dearer than the lover of her girlhood, than the husband of her youth. CHAPTER XI. FORGOTTEN. The “Protector” had been dead for two years. Its very name was a memory. Lawyers who had assisted in holding a legal inquest over its remains—directors who had been badgered to death concerning its failure—people who had lost money or made money by it, recollected that there had once been such a Company; but the grass was growing green above its grave—in law courts and the Stock Exchange. So many similar ventures had lived, and prospered, and died in the time, that its history had become an old, old tale, which was never now repeated save here and there by one who had lost money through it. Summer was come once again, and in the close streets round about Bethnal Green and Spitalfields the hot sultry air which met any adventurous explorer who bravely pursued his way into those almost unknown regions, seemed like the breath issuing from the mouth of some sulphurous pestilent volcano. The thousand and one smells of the East of London assailed his nostrils, the sights and sounds of that most wretched locality offended his eyes and ears. Few people who were not called thither by business or necessity jostled the rightful inhabitants in the streets; but it is to the east of Bishopsgate Street. Without I must, nevertheless, with all due apology for even hinting at the existence of such a neighbourhood, conduct my reader to Silk Street, so named, no doubt, in olden times, on account of the number of silk-weavers who abode there. It had once been a thoroughfare of no small importance; but its glory had faded, its trade fallen away, although the railway waggons thundered through it, and the noise of passing carts and cabs never stopped, never from morning till night. It was a mean, poor street, composed principally of dilapidated-looking three-storey houses, in the windows of which were exhibited here fruit and vegetables, there drapery goods, and again furniture of the stalest, poorest, commonest description. Towards the end of the thoroughfare, however, there were erected some new warehouses and stores. Contrasting gloomily with their bright red-brick fronts was the gateway which gave ingress to Mr. Lukin’s silk-weaving factory.