He had visited Jasper while that gentleman lodged in St. James's; but the
moment he hinted at the return of the L100, Mr. Losely opened both door
and window, and requested the manager to make his immediate choice of the
two. Taking the more usual mode of exit, Mr. Rugge vented his just
indignation in a lawyer's letter, threatening Mr. Losely with an action
for conspiracy and fraud. He had also more than once visited Mrs. Crane,
who somewhat soothed him by allowing that he had been very badly used,
that he ought at least to be repaid his money, and promising to do her
best to persuade Mr. Losely "to behave like a gentleman." With regard to
Sophy herself, Mrs. Crane appeared to feel a profound indifference. In
fact, the hatred which Mrs. Crane had unquestionably conceived for Sophy
while under her charge was much diminished by Losely's unnatural conduct
towards the child. To her it was probably a matter of no interest
whether Sophy was in Rugge's hands or Waife's; enough for her that the
daughter of a woman against whose memory her fiercest passions were
enlisted was, in either case, so far below herself in the grades of the
social ladder.

Perhaps of the two protectors for Sophy, Rugge and Waife, her spite alone
would have given the preference to Waife. He was on a still lower step
of the ladder than the itinerant manager. Nor, though she had so
mortally injured the forlorn cripple in the eyes of Mr. Hartopp, had
she any deliberate purpose of revenge to gratify against him! On the
contrary, if she viewed him with contempt, it was a contempt not unmixed
with pity. It was necessary to make to the Mayor the communications she
had made, or that worthy magistrate would not have surrendered the child
intrusted to him, at least until Waife's return. And really it was a
kindness to the old man to save him both from an agonizing scene with
Jasper, and from the more public opprobrium which any resistance on his
part to Jasper's authority or any altercation between the two would