“Look here, father, I’ll do what I can.  I’ll come round to-morrow and look into things for you, if that’s any good.”

The instant he had made the offer he was aware of its futility.  It was not for his business capacity that he was valued; and he never had been permitted to interfere with the finances of the shop.  The suggestion roused his father to a passion that partook of terror.

“Look into things?” He rose trembling.  “You mind your own business.  I can look into things myself.  There’d ’ave been no need to look into them at all if you ’adn’t robbed and deceived me.  Robbed and deceived me, I said.  You took your education—­which I gave you to put into my business—­you took it out of the business, and set up with it on your own account.  And I tell you you might as well ’ave made off with a few thousands out of my till.  Robbing’s wot you’ve been guilty of in the sight of God; and you can come and talk to me about your conscience.  I don’t understand your kind of conscience—­Keith.”  There was still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son’s name.

“Perhaps not,” said Keith sorrowfully.  “I don’t understand it myself.”

He walked with his father to Holborn, silently, through the drizzling rain.  He held an umbrella over him, while they waited, still silently, for the Liverpool Street omnibus.  He noticed with some anxiety that the old man walked queerly, shuffling and trailing his left foot, that he had difficulty in mounting the step of the omnibus, and was got into his seat only after much heaving and harrying on the part of the conductor.  His face and attitude, as he sank crouching into his seat, were those of a man returning from the funeral of his last hope.

And in Keith’s heart there was sorrow, too, as for something dead and departed.

CHAPTER XLIX

If, much to Rickman’s regret, Flossie did not take kindly to Miss Roots, very soon after her engagement she discovered her bosom friend in Miss Ada Bishop.  The friendship was not founded, as are so many feminine attachments, upon fantasy or caprice, but rested securely on the enduring commonplace.  If Flossie respected Ada because of her knowledge of dress, and her remarkable insight into the ways of gentlemen, Ada admired Flossie because of the engagement, which, after all, was not (like some girls’ engagements) an airy possibility or a fiction, but an accomplished fact.

This attachment, together with the firm possession of Keith, helped to tide Flossie over the tedium of waiting.  Only one thing was wanting to complete her happiness, and even that the thoughtful gods provided.

About six o’clock one evening, as Rickman was going out of the house, he was thrust violently back into the passage by some one coming in.  It was young Spinks; and the luggage that he carried in his hand gave a frightful impetus to his entry.  At the sight of Rickman he let go a hat-box, an umbrella and a portmanteau, and laid hold of him by both hands.