If, through the long day, the starved heart of the man called feebly for its natural food, he called it a paltry weakness; or if the old thought of the quiet, pure little girl in the office below came back to him, he—­he wished her well, he hoped she might succeed in her work, he would always be ready to lend her a helping hand.  So many years (he was ashamed to think how many) he had built the thought of this girl as his wife into the future, put his soul’s strength into the hope, as if love and the homely duties of husband and father were what life was given for!  A boyish fancy, he thought.  He had not learned then that all dreams must yield to self-reverence and self-growth.  As for taking up this life of poverty and soul-starvation for the sake of a little love, it would be an ignoble martyrdom, the sacrifice of a grand unmeasured life to a shallow pleasure.  He was no longer a young man now; he had no time to waste.  Poor Margaret! he wondered if it hurt her now.

He left the writing in the slow, quiet way natural to him, and after a while stooped to pat the dog softly, who was trying to lick his hand,—­with the hard fingers shaking a little, and a smothered fierceness in the half-closed eye, like a man who is tortured and alone.

There is a miserable drama acted in other homes than the Tuileries, when men have found a woman’s heart in their way to success, and trampled it down under an iron heel.  Men like Napoleon must live out the law of their natures, I suppose,—­on a throne or in a mill.

So many trifles that day roused the under-current of old thoughts and old hopes that taunted him,—­trifles, too, that he would not have heeded at another time.  Pike came in on business, a bunch of bills in his hand.  A wily, keen eye he had, looking over them,—­a lean face, emphasized only by cunning.  No wonder Dr. Knowles cursed him for a “slippery customer,” and was cheated by him the next hour.  While he and Holmes were counting out the bills, a little white-headed girl crept shyly in at the door, and came up to the table,—­oddly dressed, in an old-fashioned frock fastened with great horn buttons, and with an old-fashioned anxious pair of eyes, the color of blue Delft.  Holmes smoothed her hair, as she stood beside them; for he never could help caressing children or dogs.  Pike looked up sharply,—­then half smiled, as he went on counting.

“Ninety, ninety-five, and one hundred, all right,”—­tying a bit of tape about the papers.  “My Sophy, Mr. Holmes.  Good girl, Sophy is.  Bring her up to the mill sometimes,” he said, apologetically, “on ’count of not leaving her alone.  She gets lonesome at th’ house.”

Holmes glanced at Pike’s felt hat lying on the table:  there was a rusty strip of crape on it.

“Yes,” said Pike, in a lower tone, “I’m father and mother, both, to Sophy now.”

“I had not heard,” said Holmes, kindly.  “How about the boys, now?”