From that point the talk became easier.  All the aspects of their position were considered, without stress of feeling, for Will had recovered his self-control; and Sherwood, soothed by the sense of having discharged an appalling task, tended once more to sanguine thoughts.  To be sure, neither of them could see any immediate way out of the gulf in which they found themselves; all hope of resuming business was at an end; the only practical question was, how to earn a living; but both were young men, and neither had ever known privation; it was difficult for them to believe all at once that they were really face to face with that grim necessity which they had thought of as conquering others, but never them.  Certain unpleasant steps, however, had at once to be taken.  Sherwood must give up his house at Wimbledon; Warburton must look about for a cheap lodging into which to remove at Michaelmas.  Worse still, and more urgent, was the duty of making known to Mrs. Warburton what had happened.

“I suppose I must go down at once,” said Will gloomily.

“I see no hurry,” urged the other.  “As a matter of fact, your mother and sister will lose nothing.  You undertook to pay them a minimum of three per cent. on their money, and that you can do; I guarantee you that, in any case.”

Will mused.  If indeed it were possible to avoid the disclosure—?  But that would involve much lying, a thing, even in a good cause, little to his taste.  Still, when he thought of his mother’s weak health, and how she might be affected by the news of this catastrophe, he began seriously to ponder the practicability of well-meaning deception.  That, of course, must depend upon their difficulties with Applegarth remaining strictly private; and even so, could Mr. Turnbull’s scent for disaster be successfully reckoned with?

“Don’t do anything hastily, Warburton, I beg of you,” continued the other.  “Things are never so bad as they look at first sight.  Wait till I have seen—­you know who.  I might even be able to—­but it’s better not to promise.  Wait a day or two, at all events.”

And this Warburton resolved to do; for, if the worst came to the worst, he had some three hundred pounds of his own still in the bank, and so could assure, for two years at all events, the income of which his mother and Jane had absolute need.  For himself, he should find some way of earning bread and cheese; he could no longer stand on his dignity, and talk of independence, that was plain.

When at length his calamitous partner had gone, he made an indifferent lunch on the cold meat he found in Mrs. Hopper’s precincts, and then decided that he had better take a walk; to sit still and brood was the worst possible way of facing such a crisis.  There was no friend with whom he could discuss the situation; none whose companionship would just now do him any particular good.  Better to walk twenty miles, and tire himself out, and see how things looked after a good night’s sleep, So he put on his soft hat, and took his walking-stick, and slammed the door behind him.  Some one was coming up the stairs; sunk in his own thoughts he paid no heed, even when the other man stood in front of him.  Then a familiar voice claimed his attention.