uch a sum was paid
weekly in hard cash, when the collector came; let the payment fail, and
they knew perfectly well what the result would be. The children of the
upper world could not even by chance give a thought to the sources
whence their needs are supplied; speech on such a subject in their
presence would be held indecent. In John Hewett's position, the
indecency, the crime, would have been to keep silence and pretend that
the needs of existence are ministered to as a matter of course.

His tone and language were pitifully those of feeble age. The emotion
proved too great a strain upon his body, and he had at length to sit
down in a tremulous state, miserable with the consciousness of failing
authority. He would have made but a poor figure now upon Clerkenwell
Green. Even as his frame was shrunken, so had the circle of his
interests contracted; he could no longer speak or think on the subjects
which had fired him through the better part of his life; if he was
driven to try and utter himself on the broad questions of social wrong,
of the people's cause, a senile stammering of incoherencies was the
only result. The fight had ever gone against John Hewett; he was one of
those who are born to be defeated. His failing energies spent
themselves in conflict with his own children; the concerns of a
miserable home were all his mind could now cope with.

'Come and sit down to your dinner, father,' Annie said, when he became
silent.

'Dinner? I want no dinner. I've no stomach for food when it's stolen.
What's Sidney goin' to have when he comes home?'

'He said he'd do with bread and cheese to-day. See, we've cut some meat
for you?'

'You keep that for Sidney, then, and don't one of you dare to say
anything about it. Cut me a bit of bread, Annie.'

She did so. He ate it, standing by the fireplace, drank a glass of
water, and went into the sitting-room. There he sat unoccupied for
nearly an hour, his head at times dropping forward as if he were nearly
asleep; but it was only in abstraction. The morning's work had wearied
him excessively, as such effort always did, but the mental misery he
was suffering made him unconscious of bodily fatigue.

The clinking and grinding of the gate drew his attention; he stood up
and saw his son-in-law, returned from Clerkenwell. When he had heard
the house-door grind and shake and close, he called 'Sidney!'

Sidney looked into the parlour, with a smile.

'Come in here a minute; I want