"It's all right, 'Ziah!" he exclaimed, "the knot's tied."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that you ought," panted Keziah, darting away to avoid another embrace. "And pray where's Miss May?"

Tom Brough did not answer, he only hurried into the drawing-room, where old Richards sat upright, holding on by the arms of his chair.

"Where's May?" he gasped, looking ashy pale; "why have you not brought her back?"

"Because she was not mine to bring," said Tom Brough coolly. "Flunk Marr waylaid me, and he's carried her off and married her."

"Brough! this is a plot, and you are in it," exclaimed old Richards fiercely, as he saw the serio-comic smile upon his friend's countenance.

"Well, yes, I had a little to do with it," Brough said quietly.

"And is dear Miss May really married to Mr Frank?" cried Keziah.

"Silence, woman," roared old Richards. "Brough, I'll never forgive you.

You've planned all this with that beggar, and he's swindled me out of a thousand pounds, and robbed me of my child! A rascally, lying beggar."

"Gently, gently, my dear Richards," said Tom Brough, coolly. "I don't think that now I have taken him into partnership he is quite the beggar you imagine. What with that and your thousand, and what we--_we_, friend Richards--will leave them when we die, I don't think there will be many men hold up their heads much higher in the City than Frank Marr.

On the whole, I think your child has done well."

"Brough, Brough," exclaimed old Richards excitedly, "what does this all mean? In G.o.d's name tell me, or I shall have a fit."

"In G.o.d's name," said Tom Brough, slowly and reverently, "it means that I, blessed as I have been with wealth, could not commit the grievous sin you wished against that sweet child I loved her too well to condemn her to such a fate, and Frank Marr found me more open to appeal than he did his father-in-law. I told him to come again to your office when he had been to me, and at my wish he accepted all your terms, though not without a deal of forcing on my part. He's a fine, n.o.ble-hearted young fellow, Richards, and listening to me I tried to make matters work for the good of us all."

He looked at old Richards as he spoke, but the old man was scowling at the wall.

"Would you have murdered your child, Richards?" said Tom Brough. "I tell you, man, that had your will been law the poor girl would not have lived a year, while now, with the husband she loves, she is waiting to ask your forgiveness for that for which I am solely to blame."

"Keziah," said Mr Brough softly, after a pause, and he whispered a few words in her ear--words whose effect was to send her from the room, but only to return in ten minutes, followed by Frank Marr, leading in his trembling wife.

STORY FIVE, CHAPTER EIGHT.

CAN'T IT BE TO-MORROW?

There will doubtless be those ready to say that such things do not happen in real life--that rich men do not take poor men into partnership, nor yet give up handsome young wives on their wedding morn; but in spite of all that cynics may declare, there are men with hearts so large still to be found in this business-like world of ours--men who are ready to do any good to benefit another. And there are times when people do perform very eccentric acts, in proof of which must be related what took place in Walbrook that same evening, at a time when there was a merry party in the drawing-room, and old Richards' face wore an expression that it had not worn for years. There came a ring at the door bell--a sneaking under-handed sort of ring; and on Keziah opening the door--behold Peter Pash!

"May I come in?" he said, modestly.

"Come in? yes, man," cried Keziah, catching him by the coat, and giving him a s.n.a.t.c.h so that he was pulled into the pa.s.sage, and the door banged behind him.

The next moment, to Peter's utter astonishment--for he was ignorant of the morning's changes--Keziah's arms were round his neck.

"Peter dear, can't it be to-morrow?"

"What! will you have me, then?" cried the little man in ecstasies, and the next moment there was the sound of such a kiss heard in that pa.s.sage that it rolled along, vibrating from floorcloth to ceiling, and actually echoed; not that one would have recorded the fact, only this was such a tremendously big kiss, and one that echoes is really worthy of mention.

_It_ could not "be to-morrow," but it happened very soon after, and Tom Brough gave away the bride, while, talk about illuminations, Peter Pash's house was a sight that drew together twelve small boys and an old woman, who stayed till the last dip went out and smelt unpleasant in the best room window; but it is not every man that can have an illumination at his own expense and of his own manufacture.

The gout proved too much for old Richards before another twelvemonths pa.s.sed; but every one said that during the last year of his life he was another man.

The End.