a position of genial authority, of beneficent command, with all the respect and gratitude and consideration attaching thereto.  He could do without personal comforts, if need were, but it pained him horribly to think of being no longer a patron and a master.  With a good deal more philosophy than the average man, and vastly more benevolence, he could not attain to the humility which would have seen in this change of fortune a mere surrender of privileges perhaps quite unjustifiable.  Social grades were an inseparable part of his view of life; he recognised the existence of his superiors—­though resolved to have as little to do with them as possible, and took it as a matter of course that multitudes of men should stand below his level.  To imagine himself an object of pity for Mrs. Hopper and Allchin and the rest of them wrought upon his bile, disordered his digestion.

He who had regarded so impatiently the trials of Norbert Franks now had to go through an evil time, with worse results upon his temper, his health, and whole being, than he would have thought conceivable.  For a whole fortnight he lived in a state of suspense and forced idleness, which helped him to understand the artist’s recourse to gin and laudanum.  The weather was magnificent, but for him no sun rose in the sky.  If he walked about London, he saw only ugliness and wretchedness, his eyes seeming to have lost the power of perceiving other things.  Every two or three days he heard from Sherwood, who wrote that he was doing his utmost, and continued to hold out hope that he would soon have money:  but these letters were not reassuring.  The disagreeable interview with Applegarth had passed off better than might have been expected.  Though greatly astonished, and obviously in some doubt as to the facts of the matter, Applegarth behaved as a gentleman, resigned all claims upon the defaulters, and brought the affair to a decent close as quickly as possible.  But Warburton came away with a face so yellow that he seemed on the point of an attack of jaundice.  For him to be the object of another man’s generous forbearance was something new and intolerable.  Before parting with Sherwood, he spoke to him bitterly, all but savagely.  A few hours later, of course, repentance came upon him, and he wrote to ask pardon.  An evil time.

At length Sherwood came to Chelsea, having written to ask for a meeting.  Will’s forebodings were but too well justified.  The disastrous man came only to say that all his efforts had failed.  His debtor for ten thousand pounds was himself in such straits that he could only live by desperate expedients, and probably would not be able to pay a penny of interest this year.

“Happily,” said Sherwood, “his father’s health is breaking.  One is obliged to talk in this brutal way, you know.  At the father’s death it will be all right; I shall then have my legal remedy, if there’s need of it.  To take any step of that sort now would be ruinous; my friend would be cut off with a shilling, if the affair came to his father’s ears.”