"Shall I light your candle, sir?"

But when she did the sight was not pleasant. Drenched with rain, his
collar pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as in some measure to act
as a disguise, breathless and trembling--hardly any body would have
recognized in this discreditable object that gentlemanly young man,
Mr. Ascott Leaf.

He staggered into his room and threw himself across the bed.

"Do you want anything, Sir?" said Elizabeth, from the door.

"No--yes--stay a minute. Elizabeth, are you to be trusted?"

"I hope I am, Sir."

"The bailiffs are after me. I've just dodged them. If they know I'm
here the game's all up--and it will kill my aunt."

Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad to hear him say that--glad to
see the burst of real emotion with which he flung himself down on the
pillow, muttering all sorts of hopeless self-accusations.

"Come, Sir, 'tis no use taking on so," said she, much as she would
have spoken to a child, for there was something childish rather than
man like in Ascott's distress. Nevertheless, she pitied him, with the
unreasoning pity a kind heart gives to any creature, who, blameworthy
or not, has fallen into trouble. "What do you mean to do?"