“And she went.”

III

“Well, there you are, old man.  There it is.  That’s the story.  That’s the end.  That’s the end of my story, but what the end of the story as Sabre’s living it is going to be, takes—­well, it lets in some pretty wide guessing.  There he is, and there’s the girl, and there’s the baby; and he’s what he says he is—­what I told you:  a social outcast, beyond the pale, ostracized, excommunicated.  No one will have anything to do with him.  They’ve cleared him out of the office, or as good as done so.  He says the man Twyning worked that.  The man Twyning—­that Judas Iscariot chap, you remember—­is very thick with old Bright, the girl’s father.  Old Bright pretty naturally thinks his daughter has gone back to the man who is responsible for her ruin, and this Twyning person—­who’s a partner, by the way—­wrote to Sabre and told him that, although he personally didn’t believe it—­’not for a moment, old man,’ he wrote—­still Sabre would appreciate the horrible scandal that had arisen, and would appreciate the fact that such a scandal could not be permitted in a firm like theirs with its high and holy Church connections.  And so on.  He said that he and Fortune had given the position their most earnest and sympathetic thought and prayers—­and prayers, mark you—­and that they’d come to the conclusion that the best thing to be done was for Sabre to resign.

“Sabre says he was knocked pretty well silly by this step.  He says it was his first realisation of the attitude that everybody was going to take up against him.  He went off down and saw them, and you can imagine there was a bit of a scene.  He said he was dashed if he’d resign.  Why on earth should he resign?  Was he to resign because he was doing in common humanity what no one else had the common humanity to do?  That sort of thing.  You can imagine it didn’t cut much ice with that crowd.  The upshot of it was that Twyning, speaking for the firm, and calling him about a thousand old mans and that sort of slush, told him that the position would be reconsidered when he ceased to have the girl in his house and that, in the interests of the firm, until he did that he must cease to attend the office.

“And then old Sabre said he began to find himself in exactly the same position with every one.  Every door closed to him.  No one having anything to do with him.  Even an old chap next door, a particular friend of his called Fungus or Fargus or some such name—­even this old bird’s house and his society is forbidden him.  Sabre says old Fungus, or whatever his name is, is all right, but it appears he’s ruled by about two dozen ramping great daughters, and they won’t let their father have anything to do with Sabre.  No, he’s shut right out, everywhere.