Having settled his affairs in this humdrum, idiotic manner, Horace took a third-class return to Llandudno.  Sidney and Ella were staying at the hydro with the strange Welsh name, and he found Sidney lolling on the sunshiny beach in front of the hydro discoursing on the banjo to himself.  When asked where his wife was, Sidney replied that she was lying down, and was obliged to rest as much as possible.

Horace, ashamed to trouble this domestic idyl, related his misfortunes as airily as he could.

And Sidney said he was awfully sorry, and had no notion how matters stood, and could he do anything for Horace?  If so, Horace might—­

‘No,’ said Horace.  ’I’m all right.  I’ve very fortunately got an excellent place as manager in a big new manufactory in Germany.’  (This is how we deal with German competition in the Five Towns.)

‘Germany?’ cried Sidney.

‘Yes,’ said Horace; ‘and I start the day after tomorrow.’

‘Well,’ said Sidney, ‘at any rate you’ll stay the night.’

‘Thanks,’ said Horace, ‘you’re very kind.  I will.’

So they went into the hydro together, Sidney caressing his wonderful new pearl-inlaid banjo; and Horace talked in low tones to Ella as she lay on the sofa.  He convinced Ella that his departure to Germany was the one thing he had desired all his life, because it was not good that Ella should be startled, shocked, or grieved.

They dined well.

But in the night Sidney had a recurrence of his old illness—­a bad attack; and Horace sat up through the dark hours, fetched the doctor, and bought things at the chemist’s.  Towards morning Sidney was better.  And Horace, standing near the bed, gazed at his stepbrother and tried in his stupid way to read the secrets beneath that curly hair.  But he had no success.  He caught himself calculating how much Sidney had cost him, at periods of his career when he could ill spare money; and, having caught himself, he was angry with himself for such baseness.  At eight o’clock he ventured to knock at Ella’s door and explain to her that Sidney had not been quite well.  She had passed a peaceful night, for he had, of course, refrained from disturbing her.

He was not quite sure whether Sidney had meant him to stay at the hydro as his guest, so he demanded a bill, paid it, said good-bye, and left for Bonn-on-the-Rhine.  He was very exhausted and sleepy.  Happily the third-class carriages on the London & North-Western are pretty comfortable.  Between Chester and Crewe he had quite a doze, and dreamed that he had married Ella after all, and that her twenty thousand pounds had put the earthenware business on a footing of magnificent and splendid security.

V

A few months later Horace’s house and garden at Toft End were put up to auction by arrangement with his mortgagee and his trade-creditors.  And Sidney was struck with the idea of buying the place.  The impression was that it would go cheap.  Sidney said it would be a pity to let the abode pass out of the family.  Ella said that the idea of buying it was a charming one, because in the garden it was that she had first met her Sidney.  So the place was duly bought, and Sidney and Ella went to live there.