Jane, I know, will bless you for making her as poor as ever.  Things are going on about you which you do not suspect.  Your son is plotting, plotting; I can see it.  This money will be the cause of endless suffering to those you really love, and will never be of as much benefit to the unknown as if practical people dealt with it.  Jane is a simple girl, of infinite goodness; what possesses you that you want to make her an impossible sort of social saint?’ Too hard to speak thus frankly.  Michael had no longer the mental pliancy of even six months ago; his idea was everything to him; as he became weaker, it would gain the dire force of an hallucination.  And in the meantime he, Sidney, must submit to be slandered by that fellow who had his own ends to gain.

To marry Jane, and, at the old man’s death, resign every farthing of the money to her trustees, for charitable uses?—­But the old pang of conscience; the life-long wound to Jane’s tender heart.

A day of headache and incapacity, during which it was all he could do to attend to his mechanical work, and again the miserable loneliness of his attic.  It rained, it rained.  He had half a mind to seek refuge at some theatre, but the energy to walk so far was lacking.  And whilst he stood stupidly abstracted there came a knock at his door.

‘I thought I’d just see if you’d got straight,’ said Joseph Snowdon, entering with his genial smile.

Sidney made no reply, but turned as if to stir the fire.  Hands in pockets, Joseph sauntered to a seat.

‘Think you’ll be comfortable here?’ he went on.  ’Well, well; of course it’s only temporary.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ returned Sidney.  ’I may stay here as long as I was at the last place—­eight years.’

Joseph laughed, with exceeding good-nature.

‘Oh yes; I shouldn’t wonder,’ he said, entering into the joke.  ’Still’—­becoming serious—­’I wish you’d found a pleasanter place.  With the winter coming on, you see—­’

Sidney broke in with splenetic perversity.

’I don’t know that I shall pass the winter here.  My arrangements are all temporary—­all of them.’

After glancing at him the other crossed his legs and seemed to dispose himself for a stay of some duration.

‘You didn’t turn up the other night—­in Hanover Street.’

‘No.’

’I was there.  We talked about you.  My father has a notion you haven’t been quite well lately.  I dare say you’re worrying a little, eh?’

Sidney remained standing by the fireplace, turned so that his face was in shadow.

‘Worry?  Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied, idly.

‘Well, I’m worried a good deal, Sidney, and that’s the fact.’

‘What about?’

’All sorts of things.  I’ve meant to have a long talk with you; but then I don’t quite know how to begin.  Well, see, it’s chiefly about Jane.’

Sidney neither moved nor spoke.