rned from food, and for a moment feared
collapse such as he had suffered soon after his first going to Odessa.

By the good offices of John Jacks he had already been elected to a
convenient club, and occasionally he passed an evening there; but his
habit was to go home to Guildford Street, and sit hour after hour in
languid brooding. He feared the streets at night-time; in his
loneliness and misery, a gleam upon some wanton face would perchance
have lured him, as had happened ere now. Not so much at the bidding of
his youthful blood, as out of mere longing for companionship, the
common cause of disorder in men condemned to solitude in great cities.
A woman's voice, the touch of a soft hand--this is what men so often
hunger for, when they are censured for lawless appetite. But Piers
Otway knew himself, and chose to sit alone in the dreary lodging-house.
Then he thought of Irene, trying to forget what had happened. Now and
then successfully; in a waking dream he saw and heard her, and knew
again the exalting passion that had been the best of his life, and was
saved from ignoble impulse.

When he was at the lowest, there came a letter from Olga Hannaford, the
first he had ever received in her writing. Olga had joined her mother
at Malvern, and Mrs. Hannaford was so unwell that it seemed likely they
would remain there for a few weeks. "When we can move, the best thing
will be to take a house in or near London. Mother has decided not to
return to Bryanston Square, and I, for my part, shall give up the life
you made fun of. You were quite right; of course it was foolish to go
on in that way." She asked him to write to her mother, whom a line from
him would cheer. Piers did so; also replying to his correspondent, and
trying to make a humorous picture of the life he led between the City
and Guilford Street. It was a sorry jest, but it helped him against his
troubles. When, in a week's time, Olga again wrote, he was glad. The
letter seemed to him interesting; it revived their common memories of
life at Geneva, whither Olga said she would like to return. "What to
do--how to pass the years before me--is the question with me now, as I
suppose it is with so many girls of my age. I must find a _mission_.
Can you suggest one? Only don't let it have anything humanitarian about
it. That would make me a humbug, which I have never been yet. It must
be something entirely for my own pleasure and profit. Do think about it
in an idle moment.