Mattie left the room, and he turned into his shop again, and dismissed the news-boy from his post of promotion. The matter had worried him, and was still worrying him. The _dénouement_ was not satisfactory, and the world was hardening very much, or becoming too complex in its machinery for him. He had found Mattie out, and it had all ended just as he feared it would; and still his head ached, and his thoughts perplexed him! He counted the arrears of Mattie's salary, and put it on the back shelf, ready for her when she came down, knocking it all over the minute afterwards, and sending two shillings under the shop-board, where the shutters and gas-meter were. He made mistakes with the next customer in his change, and would not believe it was his error, although he paid the man rather than get into a fresh dispute at that instant; he rummaged from a whole packet of printed notices he dealt in, a "THIS SHOP AND BUSINESS TO BE DISPOSED OF," and stuck it with wafers in the window, upside down. He would retire from business in earnest, and not make-believe any longer; he should be more composed in mind--more happy, when all this was no longer a burden to him. He served his customers absently, and wondered--for he was a good and just man at heart--whether he was acting for the best after all; whether it was quite Christian-like to give up the child whom he had rescued from the cruel streets, five years ago, come Christmas. CHAPTER XIII. LEAVE-TAKINGS. Mattie went to her room and packed her box with trembling hands. She was very agitated still; there were many conflicting thoughts to disturb her natural equanimity. Regret at going away from the home wherein had begun her better life; indignation at the false accusations that had been made against her, and made in so hard and uncharitable a fashion; doubts of the future stretching before her, impenetrable and dusky, and the life to begin again in some way, to which she tried to give a thought, even in those early moments, and failed in utterly. Over her box came honest Ann Packet to ask the latest news--to stare in a vague idiotic way when told it. "I am going away, Ann--don't you understand?" "Going away?--no, I don't yet. Going where did you say, Mattie?" "Going away from here, where I am no longer wanted, where I am suspected of being all that is vile and wrong. Going away for good!" "Oh I my gracious--not that! Because of last night--because of----" "Many things, Ann, which I dare not explain, and which, if explained, perhaps would not be believed in by--_him_. But you, Ann--what will you think of me when I'm gone, and they say behind my back how justly I was served?" "I say?--I say?"