“He has certainly been adequately answered,” said he, still trying to carry it off. “Who by?” I rapped out hotly. “Tell me that!” and became mercilessly expectant. § 5 A happy accident relieved Mr. Gabbitas from the embarrassment of that challenge, and carried me another step along my course of personal disaster. It came on the heels of my question in the form of a clatter of horses without, and the gride and cessation of wheels. I glimpsed a straw-hatted coachman and a pair of grays. It seemed an incredibly magnificent carriage for Clayton. “Eh!” said the Rev. Gabbitas, going to the window. “Why, it’s old Mrs. Verrall! It’s old Mrs. Verrall. Really! What _can_ she want with me?” He turned to me, and the flush of controversy had passed and his face shone like the sun. It was not every day, I perceived, that Mrs. Verrall came to see him. “I get so many interruptions,” he said, almost grinning. “You must excuse me a minute! Then—then I’ll tell you about that fellow. But don’t go. I pray you don’t go. I can assure you. . . . _most_ interesting.” He went out of the room waving vague prohibitory gestures. “I _must_ go,” I cried after him. “No, no, no!” in the passage. “I’ve got your answer,” I think it was he added, and “quite mistaken;” and I saw him running down the steps to talk to the old lady. I swore. I made three steps to the window, and this brought me within a yard of that accursed drawer. I glanced at it, and then at that old woman who was so absolutely powerful, and instantly her son and Nettie’s face were flaming in my brain. The Stuarts had, no doubt, already accepted accomplished facts. And I too— What was I doing here? What was I doing here while judgment escaped me? I woke up. I was injected with energy. I took one reassuring look at the curate’s obsequious back, at the old lady’s projected nose and quivering hand, and then with swift, clean movements I had the little drawer open, four sovereigns in my pocket, and the drawer shut again. Then again at the window—they were still talking. That was all right. He might not look in that drawer for hours. I glanced at his clock. Twenty minutes still before the Birmingham train. Time to buy a pair of boots and get away. But how I was to get to the station? I went out boldly into the passage, and took my hat and stick. . . . Walk past him? Yes. That was all right! He could not argue with me while so important a person engaged him. . . . I came boldly down the steps. “I want a list made, Mr. Gabbitas, of all the really _deserving_ cases,” old Mrs. Verrall was saying.