Tribes of Israel, I shall be able to help you to the extent
of 1200 pounds a year, if," she added apologetically, "you think you
could possibly get along on that."

"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