s
destination. Was it any touch of real feeling, or only selfish
apprehension, that quickened its throbbing? The man's life had been so
utterly reckless of others, that it would be dangerous to give him credit
for any affectionate yearning--any natural remorseful pang in such a
moment as this. He had lived for self, and self alone; and his own
interests were involved in the issue of to-night.

A few steps brought him before Jacob Nowell's window. Yes, it was just as
he remembered it twenty years before--the same dingy old silver, the same
little heap of gold, the same tray of tarnished jewelry glimmered in the
faint light of a solitary gas-burner behind the murky glass. On the
door-plate there was still Jacob Nowell's name. Yet all this might mean
nothing. The grave might have closed over the old silversmith, and the
interest of trade necessitate the preservation of the familiar name.

The gentleman calling himself Percival went into the shop. How well he
remembered the sharp jangling sound of the bell! and how intensely he had
hated it and all the surroundings of his father's sordid life in the days
when he was pursuing his headlong career as a fine gentleman, and only
coming to Queen Anne's Court for money! He remembered what an incubus the
shop had been upon him; what a pursuing phantom and perpetual image of
his degradation in the days of his University life, when he was
incessantly haunted by the dread that his father's social status would be
discovered. The atmosphere of the place brought back all the old
feelings, and he was young again, a nervous supplicant for money, which
was likely to be refused to him.

The sharp peal of the bell produced Mr. Luke Tulliver, who emerged from a
little den in a corner at the back of the shop, where he had been engaged
copying items into a stock-book by the light of a solitary tallow-candle.
The stranger looked like a customer, and Mr. Tulliver received him
graciously, turning up the gas over the counter, which had been burning
at a diminished and economical rate hitherto.

"Did you wish to look at anything in antique silver, sir?" he asked
briskly. "We have some very handsome specimens of the Queen Anne period."

"No, I don't want to look at anything. I want to know whether Jacob
Nowell is still living?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Nowell is my master. You might, have noticed his name upon
the door-plate if you had looked! Do you wish to see him?"

"I do. Tell him that I am an old f