simple reason that he had been kind to her. That episode of the bucket, at their first meeting, had established a silent understanding between the two unlucky people, and each recognised in the other a kindred spirit. Never before had Elspeth met with an unsolicited act of kindness, and she was prepared to think of the man who rendered it to her trodden-down self, as a god. Moreover, the tones of his voice, the refinement of his face, the kindly look in his eyes, and perhaps his handsome exterior, appealed to her feminine nature. Moving about with steady eyes and firm lips, she was wondering all the time how she could help her hero to prove his innocence. But there is always one who loves and one who is loved. Herries was the latter, for as yet, and very naturally, his heart was untouched.

Shortly a picturesque figure entered the crowded tap-room in the person of a short, thick-set man, dressed in a coster costume of the ornate type. He wore bell-bottomed trousers of grey cloth, a short-tailed jacket of the same hue and texture, a yellow waistcoat, and a flaming red scarf twisted round his brawny throat. The dress was profusedly decorated with buttons, mother-of-pearl buttons, which appeared in every place where a button could be sewn on. His brown bowler hat was trimmed with a large ostrich feather, and his feet were shod with elegant, thin-soled, high-heeled, brown boots, more suited to a London Street than to the mud of the Essex marshes. This unusual figure--unusual at least in the country--attracted much bovine attention, but the man pushed his way towards Elspeth, and saluted her by touching his hat and kicking out his right leg, sailor fashion.

"Sweetlips," said Elspeth, looking surprised at seeing him.

"Sweetlips Kind himself," replied the man in a pleasant and rather cultivated voice, "just come into this smoky engine house, as the fogs make it, with the caravan, and the missus--ill."

"Oh!" Elspeth's voice was full of sympathy, "is Rachel ill?"

"Diphtheria, poor lass, and what's a Cheap-jack like me to do with a sick wife in a caravan?" he drew the sleeve of his jacket across his kind, shrewd, grey eyes, and must have scratched himself with the many buttons. "Is there a doctor about?" he asked huskily.

"The nearest doctor is ten miles away," explained the girl in a sympathetic manner. "He comes to Desleigh only on Saturdays."

"Can't wait till then, my girl, the missus may die at any moment, if the stuff ain't taken from her 

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