‘Your room is stuffy,’ said Munden, rising.  ’Let us go and have lunch somewhere.’

’Yes, we will!  Just a moment to wash my hands—­I’ve been in the dissecting-room.’

The friends went downstairs.  At the foot they passed the landlady’s daughter:  she drew back, but, as Shergold allowed his companion to pass into the street, her voice made itself heard behind him.

‘Shall you want tea, Mr. Shergold?’

Munden turned sharply and looked at the girl.  Shergold did not look at her, but he delayed for a moment and appeared to balance the question.  Then, in a friendly voice, he said—­

‘No, thank you.  I may not be back till late in the evening.’  And he went on hurriedly.

‘Cheeky little beggar that,’ Munden observed, with a glance at his friend.

’Oh, not a bad girl in her way.  They’ve made me very comfortable.  All the same, I shan’t grieve when the day of departure comes.’

It was not cheerful, the life-story of Henry Shergold.  At two-and-twenty he found himself launched upon the world, with a university education incomplete and about forty pounds in his pocket.  A little management, a little less of boyish pride, and he might have found the means to go forward to his degree, with pleasant hopes in the background; but Henry was a Radical, a scorner of privilege, a believer in human perfectibility.  He got a place in an office, and he began to write poetry—­some of which was published and duly left unpaid for.  A year later there came one fateful day when he announced to his friend Harvey Munden that he was going to be married.  His chosen bride was the daughter of a journeyman tailor—­a tall, pale, unhealthy girl of eighteen, whose acquaintance he had made at a tobacconist’s shop, where she served.  He was going to marry her on principle—­principle informed with callow passion, the passion of a youth who has lived demurely, more among books than men.  Harvey Munden flew into a rage, and called upon the gods in protest.  But Shergold was not to be shaken.  The girl, he declared, had fallen in love with him during conversations across the counter; her happiness was in his hands, and he would not betray it.  She had excellent dispositions; he would educate her.  The friends quarrelled about it, and Shergold led home his bride.

With the results which any sane person could have foretold.  The marriage was a hideous disaster; in three years it brought Shergold to an attempted suicide, for which he had to appear at the police-court.  His relative, the distinguished doctor, who had hitherto done nothing for him, now came forward with counsel and assistance.  Happily the only child of the union had died at a few weeks old, and the wife, though making noisy proclamation of rights, was so weary of her husband that she consented to a separation.

But in less than a year the two were living together again; Mrs. Shergold had been led by her relatives to believe that some day the poor fellow would have his uncle’s money, and her wiles ultimately overcame Shergold’s resistance.  He, now studying law at the doctor’s expense, found himself once more abandoned, and reduced to get his living as a solicitor’s clerk.  His uncle had bidden him good-bye on a postcard, whereon was illegibly scribbled something about ‘damned fools.’