a dog, if I were you!"

The dog Balthasar, seated in the centre of the lawn, was examining his
tail.

Young Jolyon looked at the animal, but saw him dimly, for his eyes were
misty.

"Yours won't come short of a hundred thousand, my boy," said old Jolyon;
"I thought you'd better know. I haven't much longer to live at my age.
I shan't allude to it again. How's your wife? And--give her my love."

Young Jolyon put his hand on his father's shoulder, and, as neither
spoke, the episode closed.

Having seen his father into a hansom, young Jolyon came back to the
drawing-room and stood, where old Jolyon had stood, looking down on the
little garden. He tried to realize all that this meant to him, and,
Forsyte that he was, vistas of property were opened out in his brain; the
years of half rations through which he had passed had not sapped his
natural instincts. In extremely practical form, he thought of travel, of
his wife's costume, the children's education, a pony for Jolly, a
thousand things; but in the midst of all he thought, too, of Bosinney and
his mistress, and the broken song of the thrush. Joy--tragedy! Which?
Which?

The old past--the poignant, suffering, passionate, wonderful past, that
no money could buy, that nothing could restore in all its burning
sweetness--had come back before him.

When his wife came in he went straight up to her and took her in his
arms; and for a long time he stood without speaking, his eyes closed,
pressing her to him, while she looked at him with a wondering, adoring,
doubting look in her eyes.

CHAPTER IV

VOYAGE INTO THE INFERNO

The morning after a certain night on which Soames at last asserted his
rights and acted like a man, he breakfasted alone.

He breakfasted by gaslight, the fog of late November wrapping the town as
in some monstrous blanket till the trees of the Square even were barely
visible from the dining-room window.

He ate steadily, but at times a sensation as though he could not swallow
attacked him. Had he been right to yield to his overmastering hunger of
the night before, and break down the resistance which he had suffered now
too long from this woman who was his lawful and solemnly constituted
helpmate?

He was strangely haunted by the recollection of her face, from before
which, to soothe her, he had tried to pull her hands--of her terrible
smothered sobbing, the like of which he had never heard, and still seemed
to hear; and he was still