“But, Mrs. Strong,” I said, “I have no claim at all upon you.”

“Please do not talk nonsense, doctor.  Dear Stephen wished me to provide for you, and I am only carrying out his wishes with his own money which God gave him perhaps for this very purpose, that it should be used to help a clever man to break down the tyranny of wicked governments and false prophets.”

So I took the money, which was paid with the utmost regularity on January the first and June the first in each year.  On this income I lived in comfort, keeping up my house in Dunchester for the benefit of my little daughter and her attendants, and hiring for my own use a flat quite close to the House of Commons.

As the years went by, however, a great anxiety took possession of me, for by slow degrees Mrs. Strong grew as feeble in mind as already she was in body, till at length, she could only recognise people at intervals, and became quite incompetent to transact business.  For a while her bankers went on paying the allowance under her written and unrevoked order, but when they understood her true condition, they refused to continue the payment.

Now my position was very serious.  I had little or nothing put by, and, having ceased to practise for about seventeen years, I could not hope to earn an income from my profession.  Nor could I remain a member of the House, at least not for long.  Still, by dint of borrowing and the mortgage of some property which I had acquired, I kept my head above water for about eighteen months.  Very soon, however, my financial distress became known, with the result that I was no longer so cordially received as I had been either in Dunchester or in London.  The impecunious cannot expect to remain popular.

At last things came to a climax, and I was driven to the step of resigning my seat.  I was in London at the time, and thence I wrote the letter to the chairman of the Radical committee in Dunchester giving ill-health as the cause of my retirement.  When at length it was finished to my satisfaction, I went out and posted it, and then walked along the embankment as far as Cleopatra’s Needle and back again.  It was a melancholy walk, taken, I remember, upon a melancholy November afternoon, on which the dank mist from the river strove for mastery with the gloomy shadows of advancing night.  Not since that other evening, many many years ago, when, after my trial, I found myself face to face with ruin or death and was saved by Stephen Strong had my fortunes been at so low an ebb.  Now, indeed, they appeared absolutely hopeless, for I was no longer young and fit to begin the world afresh; also, the other party being in power, I could not hope to obtain any salaried appointment upon which to support myself and my daughter.  If Mrs. Strong had kept her reason all would have been well, but she was insane, and I had no one to whom I could turn, for I was a man of many acquaintances but few friends.