Listening, Piers felt a glow pass into all the currents of his life.

“If only,” he exclaimed, in a voice that trembled, “I had as much strength as desire to carry on his work!”

“Why, who knows?” replied John Jacks, looking with encouragement wherein mingled something of affection.

“You have the power of sincerity, I see that.  Speak always as you believe, and who knows what opportunity you may find for making yourself heard!”

John Jacks reflected deeply for a few moments.

“I’m going away in a day or two,” he said at length, in a measured voice, “and my movements are uncertain—­uncertain.  But we shall meet again before the end of the year.”

When he had left the house, Piers recalled the tone of this remark, and dwelt upon it with disquietude.

CHAPTER XXII

The night being fair, Piers set out to walk a part of the way home.  It was only by thoroughly tiring himself with bodily exercise that he could get sound and long oblivion.  Hours of sleeplessness were his dread.  However soon he awoke after daybreak, he rose at once and drove his mind to some sort of occupation.  To escape from himself was all he lived for in these days.  An ascetic of old times, subduing his flesh in cell or cave, battled no harder than this idealist of London City tortured by his solitude.

On the pavement of Piccadilly he saw some yards before him, a man seemingly of the common lounging sort, tall-hatted and frock-coated, who was engaged in the cautious pursuit of a female figure, just in advance.  A light and springy and half-stalking step; head jutting a little forward; the cane mechanically swung—­a typical woman-hunter, in some doubt as to his quarry.  On an impulse of instinct or calculation, the man all at once took a few rapid strides, bringing himself within sideview of the woman’s face.  Evidently he spoke a word; he received an obviously curt reply; he fell back, paced slowly, turned and Piers became aware of a countenance he knew—­that of his brother Daniel.

It was a disagreeable moment.  Daniel’s lean, sallow visage had no aptitude for the expression of shame, but his eyes grew very round, and his teeth showed in a hard grin.

“Why, Piers, my boy!  Again we meet in a London street—­which is rhyme, and sounds like Browning, doesn’t it? Comment ca va-t-il?”

Piers shook hands very coldly, without pretence of a smile.

“I am walking on,” he said.  “Yours is the other way, I think.”

“What!  You wish to cut me?  Pray, your exquisite reason?”

“Well, then, I think you have behaved meanly and dishonourably to me.  I don’t wish to discuss the matter, only to make myself understood.”

His ability to use this language, and to command himself as he did so, was a surprise to Piers.  Nothing he disliked more than personal altercation; he shrank from it at almost any cost.  But the sight of Daniel, the sound of his artificial voice, moved him deeply with indignation, and for the first time in his life he spoke out.  Having done so, he had a pleasurable sensation; he felt his assured manhood.