Yes.  Jewdwine had his pride.  He was glad that his disreputable uncle’s affairs had not landed him in the Bankruptcy Court after all; but he had a movement of indignation on Lucia’s account and of admiration for Lucia.

No more of herself or her affairs; the rest was concerned with Rickman and his.  “My dear Horace,” she wrote, “we must do something for this poor little friend of yours.  You were quite right about him.  He is a genius; but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, for himself, he is so much else besides.  To think that he of all people should be entangled in our miserable business!  He has got badly hurt, too.  First of all, it preyed on his mind till he worried himself into a nervous fever.  Kitty Palliser, who saw him, said he was nearly off his head.  It seems he considered his honour implicated.  As it happens he has behaved splendidly.  He did everything in his power to prevent our losing the library, or at any rate to keep it out of his father’s hands; and the mere fact that he failed doesn’t lessen our obligation.  He has simply ruined his own prospects in the attempt.  Do you know, he tried to force his father to withdraw by threatening to leave their business if he didn’t; and he had to keep his word.  The horrible thing is that I actually owe him money—­money which he won’t take.  He had been working hard for three weeks on a catalogue for me, and is insulted at the bare suggestion of payment.  And here he is—­absolutely stranded; in debt, I believe, and without a farthing.  What in the world am I to do?”

“Poor Lucy!” thought Jewdwine, “as if she hadn’t enough to bear without having Rickman on her shoulders.”

“It seems to me that as he has done all this for us, we ought to stand by him.  If you could do anything for him—­couldn’t you help him with some introductions?  Or, better still, give him work, at any rate till he has found his feet?  I’m sure you can count on his devotion—­”

“Dear Lucy, she might be recommending me a valet.”

“Do do something for him, and you will oblige me more than I can say.”

That letter of Lucia’s gave Jewdwine much matter for reflection and some pain.  He had winced at the sale of Court House; it struck him as a personal blow.  He had had a kind of tacit understanding with himself that, in that future which he had meant to share with Lucia, Court House would be the home of his retirement.  Still, it must go.  He had to live in town, and if at the moment he could have afforded to marry a penniless Lucia he could not have afforded two establishments.