really interested him. Now
his sense of not having been looked upon seriously predominated, and
with it came an exaggerated consciousness of everything in Ingram that
was obnoxious to his spirit. If the re-reading of the letter had been
a torture for him, the knowledge that it had been ruthlessly exposed
to other eyes aggravated the pain tenfold, especially at this
particular moment.

"And so this person, whose vile scent impregnates this, has had my
soul laid bare before her for her amusement!"

"Whose vile scent?" repeated Ingram, angrily. "I must ask you not to
use such language about any friend of mine."

"You went to her, no doubt, to be praised and fawned upon for your
generosity to me, and afterwards----"

"Don't be a fool!" exclaimed Ingram, cutting him short.

"Thank you. I shall take the advice. I have been a fool long enough."

Morgan moved out of the room, leaving Ingram flushed and motionless.

CHAPTER II.

As Morgan had told Ingram, he had that day spent his last shilling. He
had thus no option but to walk home to his rooms in Chester Terrace,
Regent's Park. It was a long walk, and one had already struck, but he
did not hurry. The night was a fine one of early spring, and it suited
his mood to linger in the free air.

He had not really gone to Ingram for advice, though he had been unable
to prevent his despair from showing itself. He was sorry that the
exhaustion of his funds should have come just at the moment when he
had resigned himself to the final abandonment of the ambition that had
determined his whole life. He was sure now that a mind like Ingram's
would inevitably set down his despair to his money difficulties. But
the next moment he told himself it was grotesque on his part to care
just then what inference Ingram might draw about him. Ingram and he
would be concerned with each other but little in the future!

But what was the future to be? Were there not others who would be
fully as astonished as Ingram at learning the truth? And even if it
were possible for him to hide besides there was Margaret Medhurst.
What meaning could the future have for him without her?

His old inner life had at length come to an end and he was now to pass
from it into he knew not what--perhaps a raw, cold air. And yet his
feeling now was not so entirely one of despair as when he had that
evening rung Ingram's bell. He seemed to have been stung out of his
terrible apathy. The smart had stirred up his