I
come to see my Lady Eglington."
Now she remembered him. She had seen him in Hamley more than once.
"You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship? Is there
anything wrong?" she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
premonition.
"Ay, news that counts, I bring," answered Soolsby, "or I hadn't come this
long way. 'Tis a long way at sixty-five."
"Well, yes, at our age it is a long way," rejoined the Duchess in a
friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for
she was half a peasant at heart.
"Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose," Soolsby added; "and a
costly business it is. But what matters, so be that you help her ladyship
and I help Our Man."
"And who is 'Our Man'?" was the rejoinder. "Him that's coming safe here
from the South--David Claridge," he answered. "Ay, 'twas the first thing
I heard when I landed here, me that he come all these thousand miles to
see him, if so be he was alive." Just then he caught sight of Kate Heaver
climbing the stair to the deck where they were.
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