‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said John; but what he felt was only a sort of dull half pang additional, a sense that good luck might now come in anyone’s way save his, which was closed to it for evermore. ‘That I’m sure of,’ said the actor, ‘it isn’t very much we’ve seen of ye, John May, and I don’t even know where to find ye. To tell the truth, in me shabbiness and me poverty I didn’t care to know: for meeting you in the street is one thing and pursuing you to your lodging is another. No. Montressor was not one to shame his friends, even though ’twas virtuous poverty. But rejoice with me, me young friend--that phase is over, never, I hope, to come me way again.’ ‘Have you got an engagement?’ asked John, wondering and reflecting upon the shabbiness which was as pronounced as ever one short week before. ‘Better than that,’ said the actor. He put his hand to his eyes with a mixture of fiction yet reality. ‘Me eyes are full and so’s my heart. Pardon me, young man. Once you saved her life--never knowing that small thing was the future Rachel, the future Siddons. Me dear friend! it is Edie that has an engagement. Edie, me chyild!’ ‘Edie!’ cried John, and then he laughed aloud at the thought. Edie, that baby, to whom he had sent something the other day to buy a doll. ‘Indeed, ’tis Edie, no one else. Ye haven’t seen her for a great while. Ye don’t know that she’s sixteen or near it, and a genius. She has a right to it, sir. It’s hers by inheritance. _My_ chyild, and her mother’s--who under the name of Ada Somerset took leading parts for years--I don’t grudge it to her, me dear May. She has had devoted care. She has had a training, me dear sir, that began in her cradle--and now!’ He laid his hand upon the heart that no doubt was as full of real emotion as if he had not had a word to say on the subject. ‘And she is a good girl, and the ball at her foot,’ he added, in a tremulous tone, with water standing in his eyes. ‘The ball at her foot,’ said John, with a harsh laugh. ‘So had I yesterday--or, at least, so I thought.’ ‘There’s something happened to you, me brave boy?’ ‘Nothing’s happened: at least, nothing that’s wonderful or out of the way. I’m supposed to have broken trust and disgraced myself. It’s like the things that happen in your stage plays. I’m condemned for something I never thought of, and robbed by one to whom I tried to be kind. Go home and take care of Edie. Never let her try to be kind to anyone,’ John said, ‘it’s fatal; it’s nothing less than ruin.’ ‘Me dear boy, open your mind to me, and relieve it of that perilous stuff. It is the best way. Come, tell me. Montressor has but little in his power even now, but what he can do is always at his friends’ disposal; and, if there’s a villain to be hunted down, trust me, me brave boy--I’ll hunt him to the death!’