Dialstone Lane | Page 8

revived memories almost forgotten. It took him back forty years, and showed him a small boy treading the same road, passing the same houses. Nothing had changed so much as the small boy himself; nothing had been so unlike the life he had pictured as the life he had led. Even the blamelessness of the latter yielded no comfort; it savoured of a lack of spirit.
[Illustration: "A small boy treading the same road."]
His mind was still busy with the past when he reached home. Mrs. Chalk, a woman of imposing appearance, who was sitting by the window at needlework, looked up sharply at his entrance. Before she spoke he had a dim idea that she was excited about something.
"I've got her," she said, triumphantly.
"Oh!" said Mr. Chalk.
"She didn't want to come at first," said Mrs. Chalk;" she'd half promised to go to Mrs. Morris. Mrs. Morris had heard of her through Harris, the grocer, and he only knew she was out of a place by accident. He--"
Her words fell on deaf ears. Mr. Chalk, gazing through the window, heard without comprehending a long account of the capture of a new housemaid, which, slightly altered as to name and place, would have passed muster as an exciting contest between a skilful angler and a particularly sulky salmon. Mrs. Chalk, noticing his inattention at last, pulled up sharply.
"You're not listening!" she cried.
"Yes, I am; go on, my dear," said Mr. Chalk.
"What did I say she left her last place for, then?" demanded the lady.
Mr. Chalk started. He had been conscious of his wife's voice, and that was all. "You said you were not surprised at her leaving," he replied, slowly;" the only wonder to you was that a decent girl should have stayed there so long."
Mrs. Chalk started and bit her lip. "Yes," she said, slowly. "Ye-es. Go on; anything else?"
"You said the house wanted cleaning from top to bottom," said the painstaking Mr. Chalk.
"Go on," said his wife, in a smothered voice. "What else did I say?"
"Said you pitied the husband," continued Mr. Chalk, thoughtfully.
Mrs. Chalk rose suddenly and stood over him. Mr. Chalk tried desperately to collect his faculties.
"How dare you?" she gasped. "I've never said such things in my life. Never. And I said that she left because Mr. Wilson, her master, was dead and the family had gone to London. I've never been near the house; so how could I say such things?"
Mr. Chalk remained silent.
"What made you think of such things?" persisted Mrs. Chalk.
Mr. Chalk shook his head; no satisfactory reply was possible. "My thoughts were far away," he said, at last.
His wife bridled and said, "Oh, indeed!" Mr. Chalk's mother, dead some ten years before, had taken a strange pride--possibly as a protest against her only son's appearance--in hinting darkly at a stormy and chequered past. Pressed for details she became more mysterious still, and, saying that "she knew what she knew," declined to be deprived of the knowledge under any consideration. She also informed her daughter-in-law that "what the eye don't see the heart don't grieve," and that it was better to "let bygones be bygones," usually winding up with the advice to the younger woman to keep her eye on Mr. Chalk without letting him see it.
"Peckham Rye is a long way off, certainly," added the indignant Mrs. Chalk, after a pause. "It's a pity you haven't got something better to think of, at your time of life, too."
Mr. Chalk flushed. Peckham Rye was one of the nuisances bequeathed by his mother.
"I was thinking of the sea," he said, loftily.
Mrs. Chalk pounced. "Oh, Yarmouth," she said, with withering scorn.
Mr. Chalk flushed deeper than before. "I wasn't thinking of such things," he declared.
"What things? "said his wife, swiftly.
"The-the things you're alluding to," said the harassed Mr. Chalk.
"Ah!" said his wife, with a toss of her head. "Why you should get red in the face and confused when I say Peckham Rye and Yarmouth are a long way off is best known to yourself. It's very funny that the moment either of these places is mentioned you get uncomfortable. People might read a geography-book out loud in my presence and it wouldn't affect me."
She swept out of the room, and Mr. Chalk's thoughts, excited by the magic word geography, went back to the island again. The half-forgotten dreams of his youth appeared to be materializing. Sleepy Binchester ended for him at Dialstone Lane, and once inside the captain's room the enchanted world beyond the seas was spread before his eager gaze. The captain, amused at first at his enthusiasm, began to get weary of the subject of the island, and so far the visitor had begged in vain for a glimpse of the map.
His enthusiasm became contagious. Prudence, entering one evening in the middle of a