Charles had drawn a breath of guilty relief long before he finished that letter. He was not discovered. He stared a long moment out of his bedroom window, then opened the second letter.

He expected pages, but there was only one.

He expected a flood of words, but there were only three.

An address.

He crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand, then returned to the fire that had been lit by the upstairs maid, to the accompaniment of his snores, at eight o’clock that morning, and threw it into the flames. In five seconds it was ashes. He took the cup of tea that Sam stood waiting to hand to him. Charles drained it at one gulp, and passed the cup and saucer for more.

“I have done my business, Sam. We return to Lyme tomorrow. The ten o’clock train. You will see to the tickets. And take those two messages on my desk to the telegraph office. And then you may have the afternoon off to choose some ribbons for the fair Mary—that is, if you haven’t disposed of your heart elsewhere since our return.”

Sam had been waiting for that cue. He flicked a glance at his master’s back as he refilled the gilt breakfast cup; and made his announcement as he extended the cup on a small silver tray to Charles’s reaching fingers.

“Mr. Charles, I’m a-goin’ to hask for ‘er ‘and.”

“Are you indeed!”

“Or I would, Mr. Charles, if it weren’t I didn’t ‘ave such hexcellent prospecks under your hemploy.”

Charles supped his tea.

“Out with it, Sam. Stop talking riddles.”

“If I was merrid I’d ‘ave to live out, sir.”

Charles’s sharp look of instinctive objection showed how little he had thought about the matter. He turned and sat by his fire.

“Now, Sam, heaven forbid that I should be an impediment to your marriage—but surely you’re not going to forsake me so soon before mine?”

“You mistake my hintention, Mr. Charles. I was a-thinkin’ of harterwards.”

“We shall be in a much larger establishment. I’m sure my wife would be happy to have Mary there with her… so what is the trouble?”

Sam took a deep breath.

“I’ve been thinkin’ of goin’ into business, Mr. Charles. When you’re settled, that is, Mr. Charles. I “ope you know I should never leave you in the hower of need.”

“Business! What business?”

“I’ve set my ‘eart on ‘aving a little shop, Mr. Charles.”

Charles placed the cup back on the speedily proffered salver.

“But don’t you… I mean, you know, some of the ready?”

“I ‘ave made heekomonies, Mr. Charles. And so’s my Mary.”

“Yes, yes, but there is rent to pay and heavens above, man, goods to buy… What sort of business?”

“Draper’s and ‘aberdasher’s, Mr. Charles.”

Charles stared at Sam rather as if the Cockney had decided to turn Buddhist. But he recalled one or two little past incidents; that penchant for the genteelism; and the one aspect of his present profession where Sam had never given cause for complaint was in his care of clothes. Charles had indeed more than once (about ten thousand times, to be exact) made fun of him for his personal vanity in that direction.

“And you’ve put by enough to—”

“Halas no, Mr. Charles. We’d ‘ave to save very ‘ard.”

There was a pregnant silence. Sam was busy with milk and sugar. Charles rubbed the side of his nose in a rather Sam-like manner. He twigged. He took the third cup of tea.

“How much?”

“I know a shop as I’d like, Mr. Charles. ‘E wants an ‘undred an’ fifty pound for the goodwill and an ‘undred for the stock. An’ there’s thirty pound rent to be found.” He sized Charles up, then went on, “It ain’t I’m not very ‘appy with you, Mr. Charles. On’y a shop’s what I halways fancied.”

“And how much have you put by?”

Sam hesitated.

“Thirty pound, sir.”

Charles did not smile, but went and stood at his bedroom window.

“How long has it taken you to save that?”

“Three years, sir.”

Ten pounds a year may not seem much; but it was a third of three years’ wages, as Charles rapidly calculated; and made proportionally a much better showing in the thrift line than Charles himself could have offered. He glanced back at Sam, who stood meekly waiting—but waiting for what?—by the side table with the tea things. In the silence that followed Charles entered upon his first fatal mistake, which was to give Sam his sincere opinion of the project. Perhaps it was in a very small way a bluff, a pretending not even faintly to suspect the whiff of for-services-rendered in Sam’s approach; but it was far more an assumption of the ancient responsibility—and not quite synonymous with sublime arrogance—of the infallible master for the fallible underling.

“I warn you, Sam, once you take ideas above your station you will have nothing but unhappiness. You’ll be miserable without a shop. And doubly miserable with it.” Sam’s head sunk a fraction lower. “And besides, Sam, I’m used to you… fond of you. I’m damned if I want to lose you.”

“I know, Mr. Charles. Your feelings is ‘ighly reproskitated. With respeck, sir.”

“Well then. We’re happy with each other. Let us continue that way.”

Sam bowed his head and turned to pick up the tea things. His disappointment was flagrant; he was Hope Abandoned, Life Cut Short, Virtue Unrewarded, and a dozen other moping statues.

“Now, Sam spare me the whipped dog. If you marry this girl then of course you must have a married man’s wages. And something to set you up. I shall do handsomely by you, rest assured of that.”

“That’s very kind hindeed of you, Mr. Charles.” But the voice was sepulchral, those statues in no way demolished. Charles saw himself a moment from Sam’s eyes. He had been seen in their years together to spend a great deal of money; Sam must know he had a great deal more money coming to him on his marriage; and he might not unnaturally—that is, with innocent motive—have come to believe that two or three hundred pounds was not much to ask for.

“Sam, you must not think me ungenerous. The fact is… well, the reason I went to Winsyatt is that… well, Sir Robert is going to get married.”

“No, sir! Sir Robert! Never!”

Sam’s surprise makes one suspect that his real ambition should have been in the theater. He did everything but drop the tray that he was carrying; but this was of course ante Stanislavski. Charles faced the window and went on.

“Which means, Sam, that at a time when I have already considerable expense to meet I haven’t much to spare.”

“I ‘ad no idea, Mr. Charles. Why… I can’t ‘ardly believe—at ‘is hage!”

Charles hastily stopped the impending commiseration. “We must wish Sir Robert every happiness. But there it is. It will soon all be public knowledge. However, Sam—you will say nothing of this.”

“Oh Mr. Charles—you knows I knows ‘ow to keep a secret.”

Charles did give a sharp look round at Sam then, but his servant’s eyes were modestly down again. Charles wished desperately that he could see them. But they remained averted from his keen gaze; and drove him into his second fatal mistake—for Sam’s despair had come far less from being rebuffed than from suspecting his master had no guilty secret upon which he could be levered.

“Sam, I… that is, when I’m married, circumstances will be easier… I don’t wish to dash your hopes completely—let me think on it.”

In Sam’s heart a little flame of exultation leaped into life. He had done it; a lever existed.

“Mr. Charles, sir, I wish I ‘adn’t spoke. I ‘ad no idea.”

“No, no. I am glad you brought this up. I will perhaps ask Mr. Freeman’s advice if I find an opportunity. No doubt he knows what is to be said for such a venture.”

“Pure gold, Mr. Charles, pure gold—that’s ‘ow I’d treat any words of hadvice from that gentleman’s mouth.”

With this hyperbole Sam left. Charles stared at the closed door. He began to wonder if there wasn’t something of a Uriah Heep beginning to erupt on the surface of Sam’s personality; a certain duplicity. He had always aped the gentleman in his clothes and manners; and now there was vaguely something else about the spurious gentleman he was aping. It was such an age of change! So many orders beginning to melt and dissolve.