“Have you spoken to your uncle about it?” asked Piers mechanically.

“No; it’s difficult.  If I could go to him with something definite.”

“Have you spoken to your cousin?”

Olga delayed an instant, and answered with an embarrassed abruptness.

“She’s gone to Paris.”

Before Piers could recover from his surprise, she had waved to an empty hansom driving past.

“Think about it,” she added, “and write to me.  I must do something.  This life of loneliness and idleness is unbearable.”

And Piers thought; to little purpose, for his mind was once more turned to Irene, and it cost him a painful effort to dwell upon Olga’s circumstances.  He postponed writing to her, until shame compelled him, and the letter he at length despatched seemed so empty, so futile, that he could not bear to think of her reading it.  With astonishment he received an answer so gratefully worded that it moved his heart.  She would reflect on the suggestions he had made; moreover, as he advised, she would take counsel frankly with the Doctor; and, whatever was decided, he should hear at once.  She counted on him as a friend, a true friend; in truth, she had no other.  He must continue to write to her, but not often, not more than once a fortnight or so.  And let him be assured that she never for a moment forgot her lifelong debt to him.

This last sentence referred, no doubt, to her mother’s letters.  Dr. Derwent, it seemed, would make no acknowledgment of the service rendered him by a brother of the man whom he must regard as a pitiful scoundrel.  How abhorred by him must be the name of Otway!

And could it be less hateful to his daughter, to Irene?

The days passed.  A pleasant surprise broke the monotony of work and worry when, one afternoon, the office-boy handed in a card bearing the name Korolevitch.  The Russian was spending a week in London, and Otway saw him several times; on one occasion they sat talking together till three in the morning.  To Piers this intercourse brought vast mental relief, and gave him an intellectual impulse of which he had serious need in his life of solitude, ever tending to despondency.  Korolevitch, on leaving England, volunteered to call upon Moncharmont at Odessa.  He had wool to sell, and why not sell it to his friends?  But he, as well as Piers, looked for profit of another kind from this happy acquaintance.

It was not long. before Otway made another call upon Miss Bonnicastle, and at this time, as he had hoped, he found her alone, working.  He led their talk to the subject of Kite.

“You ought to go and see him in his garret,” said Miss Bonnicastle.  “He’d like you to.”

“Tell me, if you know,” threw out the other, looking into her broad, good-natured face.  “Is he still interested in Miss Hannaford?”

“Why, of course!  He’s one of the stupids who keep up that kind of thing for a lifetime.  But ‘he that will not when he may’!  Poor silly fellow!  How I should enjoy boxing his ears!”