Bret Harte

“ No, Mademoiselle is good, is wise. She will say to herself, 'I understand, my friend Monsieur de Ferrières for the moment has a secret. He would seem poor, he would take the rôle of artisan, he would shut himself up in these walls—perhaps I may guess why, but it is his secret. I think of it no more." He caught her hand in his with a gesture that he would have made one of gallantry, but that in its tremulous intensity became a piteous supplication.
"I have said nothing, and will say nothing, if you wish it," said Rosey hastily; "but others may find out how you live here. ”

“ When she had satisfied herself that his sleep was natural, she busied herself softly in arranging the miserable apartment. With a few feminine touches she removed the slovenliness of misery and placed the loose material and ostentatious evidences of .his work on one side. Finding that he still slept, and knowing the importance of this natural medication, she placed the refreshment she had brought by his side and noiselessly quitted the apartment. ”

“ He shrugged his shoulders and pacing the apartment with a furtive glance at the half anxious, half frightened girl, suddenly stopped, dragged a small portmanteau from behind the heap of bales and opened it. "Look, Mademoiselle," he said, tremulously lifting a handful of worn and soiled letters and papers. "Look—these are the tools of your banker, your lawyer, your doctor. With this the banker will make you poor, the lawyer will prove you a thief, the doctor will swear you are crazy, eh! What shall you call the work of a gentleman—this—" he dragged the pile of cushions forward—"or this?" ”

“ Perhaps," she added, "there is some one I can send for?"
He shook his head violently. Then in his old manner added, "After Mademoiselle—no one."
"I mean—" she hesitated; "have you no friends?"
"Friends, ah! without doubt." He shrugged his shoulders. "But Mademoiselle will comprehend——"'"
"You are better now," said Rosey quickly, "and no one need know anything if you don't wish it. Try to sleep. You need not lock the door when I go; I will see that no one comes in." ”

“ She read with keen eyes the miserable secret of her father's strange guest in the poverty-stricken walls, in the mute evidences of menial handicraft performed in loneliness and privation, in this piteous adaptation of an accident to save the conscious shame of premeditated toil. ”

“ I'm on the fly, anyhow, Rosey dear, hevin' to see a man round the corner."
But even the attitude of withdrawing did not prevent the exit of Renshaw to his apartment and of Rosey to the galley. Left alone in the cabin, Abner Nott felt in the knots and tangles of his beard for a reason. Glancing down at his prodigious boots which, covered with mud and gravel, strongly emphasised his agricultural origin, and gave him a general appearance of standing on his own broad acres, he was struck with an idea. "It's them boots," he whispered to himself softly ”