IN THE FIRST PAGE OF "THE TIMES."
Robert Audley was to be a barrister. As a was his name in the law-list; as a he had in Figtree Court, Temple; as a he had the number of dinners, which the through which the on to and fortune. If these can make a man a barrister, Robert Audley was one. But he had either had a brief, or to a brief, or to have a in all those five years, which his name had been painted upon one of the doors in Figtree Court. He was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow, of about seven-and-twenty; the only son of a of Sir Michael Audley. His father had left him £400 a year, which his friends had him to by being called to the bar; and as he it, after consideration, more trouble to oppose the of these friends than to eat so many dinners, and to take a set of in the Temple, he the course, and called himself a barrister.
Sometimes, when the weather was very hot, and he had himself with the of his German pipe, and reading French novels, he would into the Temple Gardens, and in some spot, and cool, with his shirt and a about his neck, would tell that he had himself up with over work.
The old laughed at the fiction; but they all that Robert Audley was a good fellow; a generous-hearted fellow; a fellow, too, with a fund of and humor, under his listless, dawdling, indifferent, manner. A man who would on in the world; but who would not a worm. Indeed, his were into a perfect dog-kennel, by his of home and curs, who were by his looks in the street, and him with fondness.
Robert always the season at Audley Court; not that he was as a Nimrod, for he would to upon a mild-tempered, stout-limbed hack, and keep at a very from the hard riders; his as well as he did, that nothing was from his than any to be in at the death.
The man was a great with his uncle, and by no means by his pretty, gipsy-faced, light-hearted, cousin, Miss Alicia Audley. It might have to other men, that the of a lady who was to a very estate, was well cultivating, but it did not so to Robert Audley. Alicia was a very girl, he said, a girl, with no nonsense about her—a girl of a thousand; but this was the point to which him. The idea of his cousin's for him to some good account entered his brain. I if he had any of the amount of his uncle's fortune, and I am that he for one moment calculated upon the of any part of that to himself. So that when, one morning, about three months the time of which I am writing, the him the wedding cards of Sir Michael and Lady Audley, together with a very from his cousin, setting how her father had just married a wax-dollish person, no older than Alicia herself, with ringlets, and a giggle; for I am sorry to say that Miss Audley's her thus to that laugh which had been so much in the late Miss Lucy Graham—when, I say, these documents Robert Audley—they neither in the nature of that gentleman. He read Alicia's angry and without so much as the mouth-piece of his German pipe from his lips. When he had the of the epistle, which he read with his dark to the center of his (his only manner of surprise, by the way) he that and the wedding cards into the waste-paper basket, and his pipe, prepared himself for the of out the subject.
"I always said the old would marry," he muttered, after about an hour's revery. Alicia and my lady, the stepmother, will go at it and tongs. I they won't in the season, or say to each other at the dinner-table; always a man's digestion.
At about twelve o'clock on the that night upon which the events recorded in my last chapter had taken place, the baronet's nephew out of the Temple, Blackfriarsward, on his way to the city. He had in an hour some friend by the name of Audley across a bill of accommodation, which bill not having been provided for by the drawer, Robert was called upon to pay. For this purpose he up Ludgate Hill, with his in the August air, and to a banking-house in a out of St. Paul's churchyard, where he for selling out a of hundred pounds' of consols.
He had this business, and was at the of the court, waiting for a to him to the Temple, when he was almost by a man of about his own age, who into the narrow opening.
"Be so good as to look where you're going, my friend!" Robert remonstrated, mildly, to the passenger; "you might give a man you him and upon him."
The stopped suddenly, looked very hard at the speaker, and then for breath.
"Bob!" he cried, in a of the most astonishment; "I only touched British ground after dark last night, and to think that I should meet you this morning."
"I've you before, my friend," said Mr. Audley, the of the other, "but I'll be if I can when or where."
"What!" the stranger, reproachfully. "You don't to say that you've George Talboys?"
"No I have not!" said Robert, with an by no means to him; and then his arm into that of his friend, he him into the court, saying, with his old indifference, "and now, George tell us all about it."
George Talboys did tell him all about it. He told that very which he had related ten days to the on the Argus; and then, and breathless, he said that he had twenty thousand or so in his pocket, and that he wanted to bank it at Messrs. ——, who had been his bankers many years before.
"If you'll me, I've only just left their counting-house," said Robert. "I'll go with you, and we'll settle that in five minutes."
They did to settle it in about a of an hour; and then Robert Audley was for starting off for the Crown and Scepter, at Greenwich, or the Castle, at Richmond, where they have a of dinner, and talk over those good old times when they were together at Eton. But George told his friend that he anywhere, he or his fast, or in any way himself after a night from Liverpool by train, he must call at a coffee-house in Bridge street, Westminster, where he to a from his wife.
As they through Ludgate Hill, Fleet street, and the Strand, in a fast hansom, George Talboys into his friend's ear all those wild and which had such a over his nature.
"I shall take a on the banks of the Thames, Bob," he said, "for the little wife and myself; and we'll have a yacht, Bob, old boy, and you shall on the and smoke, while my one plays her and to us. She's for all the world like one of those what's-its-names, who got old Ulysses into trouble," added the man, was not very great.
The waiters at the Westminster coffee-house at the hollow-eyed, stranger, with his of cut, and his boisterous, manner; but he had been an old of the place in his days, and when they who he was they to do his bidding.
He did not want much—only a bottle of soda-water, and to know if there was a at the to George Talboys.
The waiter the soda-water the men had seated themselves in a box near the fire-place. No; there was no for that name.
The waiter said it with indifference, while he the little table.
George's to a whiteness. "Talboys," he said; "perhaps you didn't the name distinctly—T, A, L, B, O, Y, S. Go and look again, there must be a letter."
The waiter his as he left the room, and returned in three minutes to say that there was no name at all Talboys in the rack. There was Brown, and Sanderson, and Pinchbeck; only three altogether.
The man his soda-water in silence, and then, his on the table, his with his hands. There was something in his manner which told Robert Audley that his disappointment, as it may appear, was in a very one. He seated himself opposite to his friend, but did not attempt to address him.
By-and-by George looked up, and taking a Times newspaper of the day from a of on the table, at the page.
I cannot tell how long he sat at one paragraph among the list of deaths, his brain took in its full meaning; but after pause he pushed the newspaper over to Robert Audley, and with a that had from its dark to a sickly, white, and with an in his manner, he pointed with his to a line which ran thus:
"On the 24th inst., at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, Helen Talboys, 22."
