of excitement; Jane sent word that her grandfather was very unwell, that he appeared to have caught a chill in the journey home, and could not at present leave his bed.  For a week the old man suffered from feverish symptoms, and, though he threw off the ailment, it was in a state of much feebleness that he at length resumed the ordinary tenor of his way.  Jane had of course stayed at home to nurse him; a fortnight, a month passed, and Michael still kept her from work.  Then it happened that, on Joseph’s looking in one evening, the old man said quietly, ’I think I’d rather Jane stayed at home in future.  We’ve had a long talk about it this afternoon.’

Joseph glanced at his daughter, who met the look very gravely.  He had a feeling that the girl was of a sudden grown older; when she spoke it was in brief phrases, and with but little of her natural spontaneity; noiseless as always in her movements, she walked with a staider gait, held herself less girlishly, and on saying good-night she let her cheek rest for a moment against her father’s, a thing she had never yet done.

The explanation of it all came a few minutes after Jane’s retirement.  Michael, warned by his illness bow unstable was the tenure on which he henceforth held his life, had resolved to have an end of mystery and explain to his son all that he had already made known to Sidney Kirkwood.  With Jane he had spoken a few hours ago, revealing to her the power that was in his hands, the solemn significance he attached to it, the responsibility with which her future was to be invested.  To make the same things known to Joseph was a task of more difficulty.  He could not here count on sympathetic intelligence; it was but too certain that his son would listen with disappointment, if not with bitterness.  In order to mitigate the worst results, he began by making known the fact of his wealth and asking if Joseph had any practical views which could be furthered by a moderate sum put at his disposal.

‘At my death,’ he added, ’you’ll find that I haven’t dealt unkindly by you.  But you’re a man of middle age, and I should like to see you in some fixed way of life before I go.’

Having heard all, Joseph promised to think over the proposal which concerned himself.  It was in a strange state of mind that he returned to the Close; one thing only he was clear upon, that to Clem and her mother he would breathe no word of what had been told him.  After a night passed without a wink of sleep, struggling with the amazement, the incredulity, the confusion of understanding caused by his father’s words, he betook himself to a familiar public-house, and there penned a note to Scawthorne, requesting an interview as soon as possible.  The meeting took place that evening at the retreat behind Lincoln’s Inn Fields where the two had held colloquies on several occasions during the last half-year.  Scawthorne received with gravity what his acquaintance had to communicate.  Then he observed: