The needy wanderer looked again on the floor.  ‘I see—­I see,’ he murmured.  ’Why, indeed, should I have come to-night?  Such folk as I are not wanted here at these times, naturally.  And I have no business here—­spoiling other people’s happiness.’

‘Phil,’ said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past events justified; ’since you speak like that to me, I’ll speak honestly to you.  For these three years you have taken no thought for us.  You left home with a good supply of money, and strength and education, and you ought to have made good use of it all.  But you come back like a beggar; and that you come in a very awkward time for us cannot be denied.  Your return to-night may do us much harm.  But mind—­you are welcome to this home as long as it is mine.  I don’t wish to turn you adrift.  We will make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously ill?’

‘O no.  I have only this infernal cough.’

She looked at him anxiously.  ‘I think you had better go to bed at once,’ she said.

‘Well—­I shall be out of the way there,’ said the son wearily.  ’Having ruined myself, don’t let me ruin you by being seen in these togs, for Heaven’s sake.  Who do you say Sally is going to be married to—­a Farmer Darton?’

’Yes—­a gentleman-farmer—­quite a wealthy man.  Far better in station than she could have expected.  It is a good thing, altogether.’

‘Well done, little Sal!’ said her brother, brightening and looking up at her with a smile.  ’I ought to have written; but perhaps I have thought of you all the more.  But let me get out of sight.  I would rather go and jump into the river than be seen here.  But have you anything I can drink?  I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.’

‘Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,’ said Sally, with grief in her face.

‘Ay, that will do nicely.  But, Sally and mother—­’ He stopped, and they waited.  ‘Mother, I have not told you all,’ he resumed slowly, still looking on the floor between his knees.  ’Sad as what you see of me is, there’s worse behind.’

His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant upon the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing.  Suddenly she turned round, saying, ’Let them come, I don’t care!  Philip, tell the worst, and take your time.’

‘Well, then,’ said the unhappy Phil, ’I am not the only one in this mess.  Would to Heaven I were!  But—­’

‘O, Phil!’

‘I have a wife as destitute as I.’

‘A wife?’ said his mother.

‘Unhappily!’

‘A wife!  Yes, that is the way with sons!’

‘And besides—­’ said he.

‘Besides!  O, Philip, surely—­’

‘I have two little children.’

‘Wife and children!’ whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded.