This did for a time. But about the period of Roger's quitting Gibraltar Terrace, Lizzie unfortunately caught up an inkling that she was being deceived. Miss Panken's general acquaintance was numerous, and one day one of them chanced to go into the bar-room of the Bell-and-Clapper, and to mention, incidentally, that Roger Bevere had been run over by a hansom cab, and was lying disabled in some remote doctor's quarters--for that's what Scott told his fellow-students. Madam Lizzie rose in rebellion, accused Scott of being no gentleman, and insisted upon her right to be enlightened. So, to stop her from making her appearance at St. Bartholomew's with inconvenient inquiries, and possibly still more inconvenient revelations, Roger had promptly to quit the new lodgings at Mrs. Long's, and return to the old home near the Bell-and-Clapper. But I did not learn these particulars at first. "Who knows it, Roger?" I asked, breaking the silence. "Not one of them but Scott," he answered, supposing I alluded to the hospital. "I see Pitt has his doubts." "But they know--some of them--that Lizzie is here!" "Well? So did you, but you did not suspect further. They think of course that--well, there's no help for what they think. When a fellow is in such a position as mine, he has to put up with things as they come. I can't quite ruin myself, Johnny; or let the authorities know what an idiot I've been. Lizzie's aunt knows it; and that's enough at present; and so do those girls at the Bell-and-Clapper--worse luck!" It was impossible to talk much of it then, at that first disclosure; I wished Roger good-afternoon, and went away in a fever-dream. My wildest surmises had not pictured this dismal climax. No, never; for all that Mistress Lizzie's left hand displayed a plain gold ring of remarkable thickness. "She would have it thick," Roger said to me later. Poor Roger! poor Roger! I felt it like a blow--like a blow. No good would ever come of it--to either of them. Worse than no good to him. It was not so much the unsuitableness of the girl's condition to his; it was the girl herself. She would bring him no credit, no comfort as long as she lived: what happiness could he ever find with her? I had grown to like Roger, with all his faults and failings, and it almost seemed to me, in my sorrow for him, as if my own life were blighted. It might not have been quite so bad--not _quite_--had Lizzie been a different girl. Modest, yielding, gentle, like that little Mabel I had seen, for instance, learning to adapt her manners to the pattern of her husband's; had she been that, why, in time, perhaps, things might have smoothed down for him. But Lizzie! with her free and loud manners, her off-hand ways, her random speech, her vulgar laughs! Well, well!