‘And how will all this affect Jane?’ he asked involuntarily.

‘That is what I cannot tell,’ replied Michael.  ’It troubles me.  My son is a stranger; all these years have made him quite a different man from what I remember; and the worst is, I can no longer trust myself to judge him.  Yet I must know the truth—­Sidney, I must know the truth.  It’s hard to speak ill of the only son left to me out of the four I once had, but if I think of him as he was seventeen years ago—­no, no, he must have changed as he has grown older.  But you must help me to know him, Sidney.’

And in a very few days Sidney had his first opportunity of observing Jane’s father.  At this meeting Joseph seemed to desire nothing so much as to recommend himself by an amiable bearing.  Impossible to speak with more engaging frankness than he did whilst strolling away from Hanover Street in Sidney’s company.  Thereafter the two saw a great deal of each other.  Joseph was soon a familiar visitor in Tysoe Street; he would come about nine o’clock of an evening, and sit till after midnight.  The staple of his talk was at first the painfully unnatural relations existing between his father, his daughter, and himself.  He had led a most unsatisfactory life; he owned it, deplored it.  That the old man should distrust him was but natural; but would not Sidney, as a common friend, do his best to dispel this prejudice?  On the subject of his brother Mike he kept absolute silence.  The accident of meeting an intimate acquaintance at the office of Messrs. Percival and Peel had rendered it possible for him to pursue his inquiries in that direction without it becoming known to Michael Snowdon that he had done anything of the kind; and the policy he elaborated for himself demanded the appearance of absolute disinterestedness in all his dealings with his father.  Aided by the shrewd Mrs. Peckover, he succeeded in reconciling Clem to a present disappointment, bitter as it was, by pointing out that there was every chance of his profiting largely upon the old man’s death, which could not be a very remote contingency.  At present there was little that could be done save to curry favour in Hanover Street, and keep an eye on what went forward between Kirkwood and Jane.  This latter was, of course, an issue of supreme importance.  A very little observation convinced Joseph that his daughter had learned to regard Sidney as more than a friend; whether there existed any mutual understanding between them he could only discover by direct inquiry, and for the present it seemed wiser to make no reference to the subject.  He preserved the attitude of one who has forfeited his natural rights, and only seeks with humility the chance of proving that he is a reformed character.  Was, or was not, Kirkwood aware of the old man’s wealth?  That too must be left uncertain, though it was more than probable he had seen the advertisement in the newspapers, and, like Mrs. Peckover, had based conclusions thereupon.