“I will go with you willingly.  But I believe I rather serve to irritate Mr. Bradshaw; he is reminded of things he has said to me formerly, and which he thinks he is bound to act up to.  However, I can walk with you to the door, and wait for you (if you’ll allow me) in the street.  I want to know how he is to-day, both bodily and mentally; for indeed, Mr. Farquhar, I should not have been surprised last night if he had dropped down dead, so terrible was his strain upon himself.”

Mr. Benson was left at the door as he had desired, while Mr. Farquhar went in.

“Oh, Mr. Farquhar, what is the matter?” exclaimed the girls, running to him.

“Mamma sits crying in the old nursery.  We believe she has been there all night.  She will not tell us what it is, nor let us be with her; and papa is locked up in his room, and won’t even answer us when we speak, though we know he is up and awake, for we heard him tramping about all night.”

“Let me go up to him,” said Mr. Farquhar.

“He won’t let you in.  It will be of no use.”  But in spite of what they said, he went up; and to their surprise, after hearing who it was, their father opened the door, and admitted their brother-in-law.  He remained with Mr. Bradshaw about half-an-hour, and then came into the dining-room, where the two girls stood huddled over the fire, regardless of the untasted breakfast behind them; and, writing a few lines, he desired them to take his note up to their mother, saying that it would comfort her a little, and that he should send Jemima, in two or three hours, with the baby—­perhaps to remain some days with them.  He had no time to tell them more; Jemima would.

He left them, and rejoined Mr. Benson.  “Come home and breakfast with me.  I am off to London in an hour or two, and must speak with you first.”

On reaching his house, he ran upstairs to ask Jemima to breakfast alone in her dressing-room, and returned in five minutes or less.

“Now I can tell you about it,” said he.  “I see my way clearly to a certain point.  We must prevent Dick and his father meeting just now, or all hope of Dick’s reformation is gone for ever.  His father is as hard as the nether millstone.  He has forbidden me his house.”

“Forbidden you!”

“Yes; because I would not give up Dick as utterly lost and bad; and because I said I should return to London with the clerk, and fairly tell Dennison (he’s a Scotchman, and a man of sense and feeling) the real state of the case.  By the way, we must not say a word to the clerk; otherwise he will expect an answer, and make out all sorts of inferences for himself, from the unsatisfactory reply he must have.  Dennison will be upon honour—­will see every side of the case—­will know you refuse to prosecute; the Company of which he is manager are no losers.  Well! when I said what I thought wise, of all this—­when I spoke as if my course were a settled and decided thing, the grim old man asked me if he was to be an automaton in his own house.  He assured me he had no feeling for Dick—­all the time he was shaking like an aspen; in short, repeating much the same things he must have said to you last night.  However, I defied him, and the consequence is, I’m forbidden the house, and, what is more, he says he will not come to the office while I remain a partner.”