“Perhaps the truth is yet more awful,” said Bertha solemnly.  “He may have got a place in a shop.”

“Hush! hush!” exclaimed the other, with a pained look.  “Don’t say such things!  A poor clerk is suggestive—­it’s possible to see him in a romantic light—­but a shopman!  If you knew him,’ you would laugh at the idea.  Mystery suits him very well indeed; to tell the truth, he’s much more interesting now than when one knew him as a partner in a manufactory of some kind.  You see he’s unhappy—­there are lines in his face—­”

“Perhaps,” suggested Bertha, “he has married a rich widow and daren’t confess it.”

CHAPTER 30

It was on Saturday night that Godfrey Sherwood came at length to Warburton’s lodgings.  Reaching home between twelve and one o’clock Will saw a man who paced the pavement near Mrs. Wick’s door; the man, at sight of him, hastened forward; there were exclamations of surprise and of pleasure.

“I came first of all at nine o’clock,” said Sherwood.  “The landlady said you wouldn’t be back before midnight, so I came again.  Been to the theatre, I suppose?”

“Yes,” answered Will, “taking part in a play called ’The Grocer’s Saturday Night.’

“I’d forgotten.  Poor old fellow!  You won’t have much more of that thank Heaven!—­Are you too tired to talk to-night?”

“No, no; come in.”

The house was silent and dark.  Will struck a match to light the candle placed for him at the foot of the stairs, and led the way up to his sitting-room on the first floor.  Here he lit a lamp, and the two friends looked at each other.  Each saw a change.  If Warburton was thin and heavy-eyed, Sherwood’s visage showed an even more noticeable falling-off in health.

“What’s been the matter with you?” asked Will.  “Your letter said you had had an illness, and you look as if you hadn’t got over it yet.”

“Oh, I’m all right now,” cried the other.  “Liver got out of order—­ or the spleen, or something—­I forget.  The best medicine was the news I got about old Strangwyn.—­There, by Jove!  I’ve let the name out.  The wonder is I never did it before, when we were talking.  It doesn’t matter now.  Yes, it’s Strangwyn, the whisky man.  He’ll die worth a million or two, and Ted is his only son.  I was a fool to lend that money to Ted, but we saw a great deal of each other at one time, and when he came asking for ten thousand—­a mere nothing for a fellow of his expectations—­nobody thought his father could live a year, but the old man has held out all this time, and Ted, the rascal, kept swearing he couldn’t pay the interest on his debt.  Of course I could have made him; but he knew I shouldn’t dare to risk the thing coming to his father’s ears.  I’ve had altogether about three hundred pounds, instead of the four hundred a year he owed me —­it was at four per cent.  Now, of course, I shall get all the arrears—­but that won’t pay for all the mischief that’s been done.”