The boat stopped at the Westminster pier. They went on shore. The sun was down, and the fresh breeze that blew, while it pleasantly cooled the hot faces that moved westward from their day's work, made Lucy almost shiver with cold. For loss had laid hold of her heart. They walked up Parliament Street. Thomas felt that he must say something, but what he should say he could not think. He always thought what he should say--never what he should do. "Lucy, dear," he said at last, "we won't make up our minds to-night. Wait till I see you next. I shall have time to think about it before then. I will be a match for that sneaking rascal, Stopper, yet." Lucy felt inclined to say that to sneak was no way to give sneaking its own. But she said neither that nor anything else. They got into an omnibus at Charing Cross, and returned--deafened, stupefied, and despondent--into the city. They parted at Lucy's door, and Thomas went home, already much later than usual. What should he do? He resolved upon nothing, and did the worst thing he could have done. He lied. "You are very late to-night, Thomas," said his mother. "Have you been all this time with Mr. Moloch?" "Yes, mother," answered Thomas. And when he was in bed he comforted himself by saying there was no such person as Mr. Moloch. When Lucy went to bed, she prayed to God in sobs and cries of pain. Hitherto she had believed in Thomas without a question crossing the disk of her faith; but now she had begun to doubt, and the very fact that she could doubt was enough to make her miserable, even if there had been no ground for the doubt. My readers must remember that no one had attempted to let her into the secrets of his character as I have done with them. His beautiful face, pleasant manners, self-confidence, and, above all, her love, had blinded her to his faults. For, although I do not in the least believe that Love is blind, yet I must confess that, like kittens and some other animals, he has his blindness nine days or more, as it may be, from his birth. But once she had begun to suspect, she found ground for suspicion enough. She had never known grief before--not even when her mother died--for death has not anything despicable, and Thomas had. What Charles Wither had told Thomas was true enough. Mr. Stopper was after him. Ever since that dinner-party at Mr. Boxall's he had hated him, and bided his time.