“How are you, Sylvanus?  Aren’t you perished in this cold?”

“Warm as a toast.  Sit down.  Take off your coat.”

“Oh!  I should be lost without it.  You must have a fire inside you.  So-so it’s gone through?”

Old Heythorp nodded; and Joe Pillin, wandering like a spirit, scrutinised the shut door.  He came back to the table, and said in a low voice: 

“It’s a great sacrifice.”

Old Heythorp smiled.

“Have you signed the deed poll?”

Producing a parchment from his pocket Joe Pillin unfolded it with caution to disclose his signature, and said: 

“I don’t like it—­it’s irrevocable.”

A chuckle escaped old Heythorp.

“As death.”

Joe Pillin’s voice passed up into the treble clef.

“I can’t bear irrevocable things.  I consider you stampeded me, playing on my nerves.”

Examining the signatures old Heythorp murmured: 

“Tell your lawyer to lock it up.  He must think you a sad dog, Joe.”

“Ah!  Suppose on my death it comes to the knowledge of my wife!”

“She won’t be able to make it hotter for you than you’ll be already.”

Joe Pillin replaced the deed within his coat, emitting a queer thin noise.  He simply could not bear joking on such subjects.

“Well,” he said, “you’ve got your way; you always do.  Who is this Mrs. Larne?  You oughtn’t to keep me in the dark.  It seems my boy met her at your house.  You told me she didn’t come there.”

Old Heythorp said with relish: 

“Her husband was my son by a woman I was fond of before I married; her children are my grandchildren.  You’ve provided for them.  Best thing you ever did.”

“I don’t know—­I don’t know.  I’m sorry you told me.  It makes it all the more doubtful.  As soon as the transfer’s complete, I shall get away abroad.  This cold’s killing me.  I wish you’d give me your recipe for keeping warm.”

“Get a new inside.”

Joe Pillin regarded his old friend with a sort of yearning.  “And yet,” he said, “I suppose, with your full-blooded habit, your life hangs by a thread, doesn’t it?”

“A stout one, my boy”

“Well, good-bye, Sylvanus.  You’re a Job’s comforter; I must be getting home.”  He put on his hat, and, lost in his fur coat, passed out into the corridor.  On the stairs he met a man who said: 

“How do you do, Mr. Pillin?  I know your son.  Been’ seeing the chairman?  I see your sale’s gone through all right.  I hope that’ll do us some good, but I suppose you think the other way?”

Peering at him from under his hat, Joe Pillin said: 

“Mr. Ventnor, I think?  Thank you!  It’s very cold, isn’t it?” And, with that cautious remark, he passed on down.