no longer roam the world as an adventurer.  Any day some trivial accident might oppress him with the burden of a wife and child who looked to him for their support.  Tarrant the married man, unless he were content to turn simple rogue and vagabond, must make for himself a place in the money-earning world.  His indolence had no small part in his revolt against the stress of such a consideration.  The climate of the Bahamas by no means tended to invigorate him, and in the United States he found so much to observe,—­even to enjoy,—­that the necessity of effort was kept out of sight as long as, by one expedient and another, he succeeded in procuring means to live upon without working.

During the homeward voyage—­a trial such as he had never known, amid squalid discomforts which enraged even more than they disgusted him—­his heart softened in anticipation of a meeting with Nancy, and of the sight of his child.  Apart from his fellow-travellers,—­ in whom he could perceive nothing but coarseness and vileness,—­he spent the hours in longing for England and for the home he would make there, in castigating the flagrant faults of his character, moderating his ambitions, and endeavouring to find a way out of the numerous grave difficulties with which his future was beset.

Landed, he rather forgot than discarded these wholesome meditations.  What he had first to do was so very unpleasant, and taxed so rudely his self-respect, that he insensibly fell back again into the rebellious temper.  Choice there was none; reaching London with a few shillings in his pocket, of necessity he repaired forthwith to Mr Vawdrey’s office in the City, and made known the straits into which he had fallen.

‘Now, my dear fellow,’ said Mr. Vawdrey, with his usual good-humour, ‘how much have you had of me since you started for the Bahamas?’

‘That is hardly a fair question,’ Tarrant replied, endeavouring not to hang his head like an everyday beggar.  ’I went out on a commission—­’

‘True.  But after you ceased to be a commissioner?’

’You have lent me seventy pounds.  Living in the States is expensive.  What I got for my furniture has gone as well, yet I certainly haven’t been extravagant; and for the last month or two I lived like a tramp.  Will you make my debt to you a round hundred?  It shall be repaid, though I may be a year or two about it.’

The loan was granted, but together with a great deal of unpalatable counsel.  Having found his lodging, Tarrant at once invested ten pounds in providing himself with a dress suit, and improving his ordinary attire,—­he had sold every garment he could spare in New York.  For the dress suit he had an immediate use; on the very platform of Euston Station, at his arrival, a chance meeting with one of his old college friends resulted in an invitation to dine, and, even had not policy urged him to make the most of such acquaintances, he was in no mood for rejecting a summons back into