again on his hurried and
guilty way home. The pavements were drying in the fresh night wind
and he had his overcoat buttoned up to the neck. He was absolutely
solitary in the long, muddy perspective of Trafalgar Road. He walked
because the last tram-car was already housed in its shed at the other
end of the world, and he walked quickly because his conscience drove
him onwards. And yet he dreaded to arrive, lest a wound in the child's
leg should have maliciously decided to fester in order to put him in
the wrong. He was now as apprehensive concerning that wound as Nellie
herself had been at tea-time.

But, in his mind, above the dark gulf of anxiety, there floated
brighter thoughts. Despite his fears and his remorse as a father, he
laughed aloud in the deserted street when he remembered Mr. Bryany's
visage of astonishment upon uncreasing the note. Indubitably he had
made a terrific and everlasting impression upon Mr. Bryany. He was
sending Mr. Bryany out of the Five Towns a different man. He had
taught Mr. Bryany a thing or two. To what brilliant use had he turned
the purely accidental possession of a hundred-pound note! One of his
finest inspirations--an inspiration worthy of the great days of
his youth! Yes, he had had his hour that evening, and it had been a
glorious one. Also, it had cost him a hundred pounds, and he did
not care; he would retire to bed with a net gain of two hundred and
forty-one pounds instead of three hundred and forty-one pounds--that
was all!

For he did not mean to take up the option. The ecstasy was cooled
now and he saw clearly that London and theatrical enterprises therein
would not be suited to his genius. In the Five Towns he was on his own
ground; he was a figure; he was sure of himself. In London he would be
a provincial, with the diffidence and the uncertainty of a provincial.
Nevertheless, London seemed to be summoning him from afar off, and he
dreamt agreeably of London as one dreams of the impossible East.

As soon as he opened the gate in the wall of his property he saw that
the drawing-room was illuminated and all the other front rooms in
darkness. Either his wife or his mother, then, was sitting up in
the drawing-room. He inserted a cautious latch-key into the door
and entered the silent home like a sinner. The dim light in the hall
gravely reproached him. All his movements were modest and restrained.
No noisy rattling of his stick now!

The drawing-room door was slightly aj