Sick at heart, Tom Hulme, for it was he, leaned for support against the side of the dark entry. These women but confirmed what he had heard in Skinners’ Yard from Matt Cooper’s vindictive wife. The deep shadow of the entry hid his change of countenance. Without a condemnatory word, without a step forward towards the girl whose heart was full of him, he steadied himself and his voice, and mustering courage to say, “No, that is not the lass I want,” strode resolutely out of the entry; and, bending his steps to the right, turned up Toad Lane, and so on to the “Seven Stars,” in Withy Grove, where he was billeted. He had come back from Ireland full of hope, and _this_ was the end of it! He had been constant, and she was frail! She whom he had left so pure had sunk so low that, though she bore the brand of shame, she could sing blithely at her work, unconscious or reckless of her degradation! Tom had only been a hand-loom weaver, and was but a private in his regiment, but he had a soul as constant in love, as sensitive to disgrace, as the proudest officer in the corps. He might have doubted Sally Cooper’s artful insinuations, but for the unconscious confirmation of the other women, and the personal testimony of poor little Jabez; the innocent child, borne with sorrow by his own dead mother, bringing sorrow to his living maiden-foster-mother. The little lispings of the child conveyed no impression to Bess’s understanding, but one of the women bawled out to her from the open court— “Aw say, theer’s bin a volunteer chap axin’ fur a lass neamed Bess Clegg, but he saw thee from th’ entry, and said yore not th’ lass he wanted!” Her heart gave a great leap, and the blood flushed up to her pale face. Could it be possible that there was another Bess Clegg of whom a volunteer could be in search? Yet, had that been _her_ Tom, he would have known his Bess again, even after five—ay, or twenty years. She would know _him_ anywhere! And so all that day, and the next, her heart kept in a flutter of expectation and perplexity. She wondered he did not come. The regiment was in town; he surely had not been misled in his inquiries because they had “flitted.” Yet in all her thoughts the grim reality had no place. Her perfect innocence and singleness of heart had never suggested such a possibility to her. The days went by from the 13th to the 22nd, yet he came not. After working-hours Simon tried to hunt him up; but the billeting system, and ill-lighted streets, set his simple tactics at defiance. On the latter day, Lord Wilton gave a dinner in the quadrangle of the College, to the non-commissioned officers and privates in his regiment, to celebrate their return, and the peace and plenty then restored to the land.