of a travailing,
questioning, suffering soul, together with an iron self-repression, that
those who suffered and questioned came to him, and threw themselves upon
him; often getting more buffeting than balm for their pains; but always
conscious of some mysterious attractions in him, as of one who, like Sir
Boris, had seen the Grail, but might never tell of the vision.

Victoria was truly attached to him. He had been with her during the days
of her husband's sudden illness and death; he had advised her with regard
to the passing difficulties of Tatham's school and college days and
pointed a way for her through many perplexities of her own. Duddon was as
much of a home to him, as he probably possessed in the world. When he had
worn himself out with some one or other of the many causes he pursued in
South London, working with a sombre passion which had in it very little
of the mystical joy or hope which sustain others in similar efforts; when
he had scarcely a coat to his back, or a shoe to his feet; when his
doctor began to talk of tuberculin tests and the high Alps; then he would
wire to Duddon, and come and vegetate under Victoria's wing, for just as
many weeks as were necessary to send him back to London restored to a
certain physical standard. To watch Harry Tatham's wholesome, kindly,
prosperous life, untroubled by any of the nightmares that weighed upon
his own, was an unfailing pleasure to a weary man. He loved both Harry
and his mother. Nevertheless, as soon as he arrived, both felt him the
gadfly in the house. His mind was nothing if not critical. And
undoubtedly the sight of easy wealth was an irritation to him. He
struggled against it; but sometimes it would out.

As he sat this evening crouched over the fire, his hands spread to
the blaze, he looked more frail than usual; a fact which perhaps,
half-consciously, affected Victoria and drew out her confidence. His
dress suit, primevally old, would scarcely, she reflected, hold together
another winter. But how it was to be replaced had already cost her and
Harry much thought. There was nobody more personally, fanatically proud
than Boden toward his well-to-do friends. His clothes indeed were a
matter of tender anxiety in the Duddon household, and Tatham's valet
and Victoria's maids did him many small services, some of which he repaid
with a smile and a word--priceless to the recipient; and some he was
never aware of. When his visits to Duddon first began, the cont