When
he left that quaint sanctuary of old usages, he carried with him the
Archbishop of Canterbury's benign permission for his union with Charlotte
Halliday. But he knew not whether it was only a morsel of waste paper
which he carried in his pocket; and whether there might not ere long be
need of a ghastlier certificate, giving leave and licence for the
rendering back of "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."
Valentine's first call, after leaving George Sheldon at the gate of
Doctors' Commons, was at the head-quarters of the Ragamuffins. His heart
sank as he ran into the bar of the hostelry to ask for the telegram which
might be waiting for him.
Happily there was no telegram. To find no tidings of a change for the
worse seemed to him almost equivalent to hearing of a change for the
better. What had he not feared after his interview with the surgeon of
Bloomsbury!
From Covent Garden the hansom bowled swiftly to Burlington Row. Here
Valentine found Mr. Burkham, pale and anxious, waiting in a little den of
a third room, on the ground-floor--a ghastly little room, hung with
anatomical plates, and with some wax preparations in jars, on the
mantelpiece, by way of ornament. To them presently came Dr. Jedd, as
lively and business-like as if Miss Halliday's case had been a question
of taking out a double-tooth.
"Very sad!" he said; "these vegetable poisons--hands of unscrupulous man.
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