“But,” he cried, quite as pale now as he had been florid the moment before, “I’m not in the police force now and you are acting quite silly and I’ve no patience with you.” And he was making for the door, presumably to sit upon the stairs, when with a late repentance she seized him by the arm and said: “La now,” an expression she had caught from Mrs. Kirkshaw, “I didn’t mean nothin’ by my talk. Come back, John; Constantia Maria is not well, and if Mr. Sylvester comes up to see her, I’ll just slip out and leave you alone.” And upon that he told her she was a good wife and that if he had any secret from her it was only because he was a poor man. “Honesty and prudence are all the treasures I possess to keep us three from starving. Shall I part with either of them just to satisfy your curiosity?” and being a good woman at heart, she said “no,” though she secretly concluded that prudence in his case involved trust in one’s wife first, and disbelief in the rest of the world afterward; and took her future resolutions accordingly. “Well, Hopgood, you look anxious; do you want to speak to me?” The janitor eyed the changed and melancholy face of his patron, with an expression in which real sympathy for his trouble, struggled with the respectful awe which Mr. Sylvester’s presence was calculated to inspire. “If you please,” said he, speaking very low, for more or less of the bank employees were moving busily to and fro, “Constantia Maria is not well and she has been asking all day for the _dear man_, as she insists upon calling you, sir, with many apologies for the freedom.” Mr. Sylvester smiled with a faint far-away look in his dark eye that made Hopgood stare uneasily out of the window. “Sick! why then I must go up and see her,” he returned in a matter-of-fact way that proved his visits in that direction were of no uncommon occurrence. “A moment more and I shall be at liberty.” Hopgood bowed and renewed his stare out of the window, with an intensity happily spared from serious consequences to the passers-by, by the merciful celerity with which Mr. Sylvester procured his overcoat, put such papers in his pocket as he required, and joined him. “Constantia Maria, here is Mr. Sylvester come to see you.” It was a pleasure to observe how the little thing brightened in her mother’s arms, where but a moment before she had lain quite pale and still, and slipping to the ground rushed up to meet the embrace of this stern and melancholy-faced man. “I am so glad you have come,” she cried over and over again; and her little arms went round his neck, and her soft cheek nestled against his, with a content that made the mother’s eyes sparkle with pleasure, as obedient to her promise, she quietly left the room.