The work hours were over, the ‘hands’ were gone, the machinery was at rest, the mill shut up. Malone walked round it. Somewhere in its great sooty flank he found another chink of light. He knocked at another door, using for the purpose the thick end of his shillelagh, with which he beat a rousing tattoo. A key turned: the door unclosed.

‘Is it Joe Scott? What news of the waggons, Joe?’

‘No—it’s myself. Mr. Helstone would send me.’

‘Oh! Mr. Malone.’ The voice, in uttering this name, had the slightest possible cadence of disappointment. After a moment’s pause it continued politely, but a little formally: ‘I beg you will come in, Mr. Malone. I regret extremely Mr. Helstone should have thought it necessary to trouble you so far: there was no necessity—I told him so—and on such a night. But walk forwards.’

Through a dark apartment, of aspect undistinguishable, Malone followed the speaker into a light and bright room within—very light and bright indeed it seemed to eyes which, for the last hour, had been striving to penetrate the double darkness of night and fog; but, except for its excellent fire and for a lamp of elegant design and vivid lustre burning on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was carpetless; the three or four stiff-backed, green-painted chairs seemed once to have furnished the kitchen of some farmhouse; a desk of strong, solid formation, the table aforesaid, and some framed sheets on the stonecoloured walls, bearing plans for building, for gardening, designs of machinery, etc., completed the furniture of the place.

Plain as it was, it seemed to satisfy Malone, who, when he had removed and hung up his wet surtout and hat, drew one of the rheumatic-looking chairs to the hearth, and set his knees almost within the bars of the red grate.

‘Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore, and all snug to yourself.’

‘Yes; but my sister would be glad to see you, if you would prefer stepping into the house.’

‘Oh no; the ladies are best alone. I never was a lady’s man. You don’t mistake me for my friend Sweeting, do you, Mr. Moore?’

‘Sweeting? Which of them is that—the gentleman in the chocolate overcoat, or the little gentleman?’

‘The little one—he of Nunnely, the cavalier of the Misses Sykes, with the whole six of whom he is in love. Ha! ha!’

‘Better be generally in love with all than specially with one, I should think, in that quarter.’

‘But he is specially in love with one besides, for when I and Donne urged him to make a choice amongst the fair bevy, he named—which do you think?’

With a queer, quiet smile Mr. Moore replied:

‘Dora, of course, or Harriet.’

‘Ha! ha! you’ve an excellent guess. But what made you hit on those two?’

‘Because they are the tallest, the handsomest, and Dora, at least, is the stoutest; and as your friend Mr. Sweeting is but a little slight figure, I concluded that, according to a frequent rule in such cases, he preferred his contrast.’

‘You are right: Dora it is. But he has no chance, has he, Moore?’