What more?--a mean, poorly-furnished room; a sick woman to whom he carried the best cup of tea and a slice of bread toasted with his own hands, and then sat down to read a letter which took all appetite from him.

Out in the drenching rain, with only an old torn disreputable-looking cotton umbrella between him and the weather--out, with the wet soaking through his poor patched boots--out, his fingers numb with cold, and his heart less numb than paralysed with the same dread a hare feels when, her strength spent, she hears the hounds gaining on her.

From office to office--from one friend--Heaven save the mark!--to another; out again in the weather, with "No" ringing in every possible accent in which the word could be uttered or disguised; out hour after hour--for it was before the Saturday early-closing movement had been thought of--too wretched to feel hunger, too miserable to be exactly conscious of the length and depth of his almost frantic despair; out in the sloppy streets, under the sweeping pelting rain, with every resource exhausted, with ruin and worse than ruin staring him in the face.

For one desperate moment he thought of the river, sullen and turbid, flowing away to the sea, that would end the agony, frustrate the disgrace. He would do it--he would; and he went hurrying towards the Thames. There did not intervene five minutes between him and eternity when his eye happened quite by chance to fall on a great warehouse over the gates of which was written--

"Archibald Mortomley, White Lead and Colour Manufacturer."

"It would be nothing to him," said the poor wretch to himself. "I will ask; I can but be refused."

And so with the consciousness of that flowing river still upon him, only fainter, he closed his umbrella and, stepping within the formidable-looking gates, asked if he could see Mr. Mortomley on private business.

"He is engaged just now," answered a clerk, who knew Mr. Asherill by sight. "If you step up into his office and wait a minute, he will be with you."

Up into Mr. Mortomley's office went the man wet and miserable, who had scarcely had a civil word spoken to him during the whole of his weary pilgrimage,--up into the warmth, and what seemed to him the luxury of that comfortably furnished apartment.

Into the Turkey carpet his chilled feet sank gratefully. He was so wet he did not like to sit down and tarnish with his dripping garments the morocco leather of the easy chair. A sense of peace, and leisure, and quietness, and trust fell upon him.

The rush of the river grew less audible.

"I will do it. I will tell him all, by----."

And never in his later years had Mr. Asherill uttered the sacred name with such agonized earnestness as then.

A man entered, old, white-haired, affluent; a man who did not merely look like a gentleman, but who was one; a man who talked little about religion, but whose life had been a long worship, a perpetual thanksgiving, a continual striving to do good.

He looked at the saturated clothes, at the white anxious face, at the mute glance towards the still open door; then he walked to the door, and having closed and bolted it, came close up to his visitor and asked,

"What is it? what is the matter?"....

It was a common enough story, and it did not take long to tell. When it was ended, Mr. Mortomley went to his safe, unlocked it, took out his cheque-book, filled in a cheque, signed and blotted off the writing.

"You cannot get this cashed to-day," he said; "it is too late, but first thing on Monday will be time enough for what you want. There, there; don't thank me. Thank the Almighty for sending you here and saving you from a worse crime still. Now go. Yet stay a moment. You look as if you wanted food and drink and firing. Here are a couple of sovereigns; and now do, do pray let this be a warning to you for the remainder of your life."

That was the phantom memory conjured up. Instead of the river or a prison, relief and a fresh chance given him.

It all happened just as the waves of time brought it back to his recollection.

A similar Saturday--the rain pouring down--only now it was to the old man's son, ruin had come, and there was no one to hold out a helping hand to him.

Never had Mrs. Asherill beheld her husband in a more gracious or softer mood than when, after dinner, he sat before a blazing fire and helped her to grapes and filled a wine glass with some choice port, and insisted on her drinking it.

"I have some sad news for you," she said. "I have kept it till now lest it should spoil your appetite for dinner. My poor friend Rosa Gilbert is dead, and she has left me five hundred pounds."

"Dear, dear, dear; dead is she, poor thing!" remarked Mr. Asherill.

"What frail creatures we are! Grass before the mower. Here to-day; to-morrow, where?" And he folded his hands and stretched out his feet towards the fire, whilst Mrs. Asherill considered the question of mourning, and thought it seemed but a few days since Rosa and she were girls together.

"My dear," said Mr. Asherill, "if you have no objection I should like to devote fifty pounds of this legacy in charity. I have heard to-day of a sad case, a most sad case; a family opulent, highly esteemed, of considerable social standing, reduced to beggary. With your permission I should wish to send fifty pounds to the family as a thanks offering for great mercies vouchsafed to ourselves."

Mrs. Asherill instantly agreed to this. Though a woman, she was not mean; though a Christian, she had not her husband's faculty for looking after loaves and fishes.

She only bargained she should see the kind letter which accompanied the gift, and then and there, accordingly, Mr. Asherill wrote a draft of it.

With morning, however, came reflection. Fifty pounds was a large sum Mr.

Asherill considered, and the Mortomleys might stand in no need of it.

He decided not to send so much, but to say nothing of the reduced gift to his wife.

She had seen the letter. That letter could go all the same with a smaller enclosure. The acknowledgment of a friendly gift from J. J.

could be inserted in the 'Daily News' as he had requested. There was no necessity to change the form of that.

Monday came, and with it more prudent reflections.

Tuesday, even the later impulses of his generosity had been absurd.

Wednesday, and with it questions from Mrs. Asherill.

Thursday, and a greater access of prudence. Nevertheless, something must be done, he felt, and so he did something. He wrote out the letter in a fair hand, signed it,--"Your well wisher, John Jones," and enclosed a post-office order for 2. 10_s_.

Saturday came, no advertisement in the 'Daily News,' and more questions from Mrs. Asherill.

Monday, and this paragraph met Mr. Asherill's eyes,--

"Mrs. M. begs to acknowledge the receipt of two pounds ten shillings from J. J., which she has forwarded to the Secretary of the London Hospital."

Mr. Asherill shook all over with indignation. He had seen Mrs. Mortomley on the previous Saturday and was not surprised when he read the foregoing paragraph. He had fervently prayed privately that she might never associate him and the so-signed John Jones together, but he felt indignant nevertheless.

Particularly as it compelled him to practise a deception on the wife of his bosom.

He had to draw out an advertisement himself and take the Thursday's paper containing it home to Kew for Mrs. Asherill's delectation.

"Mrs. M. acknowledges the receipt of 50 from J. J. to whom she begs to tender her most grateful thanks."

On the whole, occupied though Mrs. M.'s mind chanced at the time to be with other matters, it was quite as well for J. J. that the 'Daily News'

was not a paper which the local vendor generally left at Homewood.

CHAPTER IV.

SUMMER DAYS.

Pedigree is one of those intangible and incontrovertible commodities which never commands a premium in the busy, bustling, practical city of London.

A long course of successful trade, big warehouses, troops of clerks, fleets of vessels,--by these things and such as these shall a man work out his temporal salvation; and, therefore, to those persons who, in the ordinary course of business, had come in contact with Mortomley, it did not signify in the slightest degree whether he had raised himself from the gutter, or was the last male of a family which had been of some reputation in days when England and Englishmen cared for something beyond sale and barter; when they laid down their lives for the sake of King, Country, Religion; and entertained grand ideas on the subject of Loyalty, Patriotism, and Courage, which pounds shillings and pence, the yard measure, and the modern god Commerce have long since elbowed out of court.