few pounds?'

'I must.'

But that undertaking was almost as hard to face as a rewriting of
the last volume would have been. Reardon had such superfluity of
sensitiveness that, for his own part, he would far rather have gone
hungry than ask for money not legally his due. To-day there was no
choice. In the ordinary course of business it would be certainly a month
before he heard the publishers' terms, and perhaps the Christmas season
might cause yet more delay. Without borrowing, he could not provide for
the expenses of more than another week or two.

His parcel under his arm, he entered the ground-floor office, and
desired to see that member of the firm with whom he had previously had
personal relations. This gentleman was not in town; he would be away for
a few days. Reardon left the manuscript, and came out into the street
again.

He crossed, and looked up at the publishers' windows from the opposite
pavement. 'Do they suspect in what wretched circumstances I am? Would
it surprise them to know all that depends upon that budget of paltry
scribbling? I suppose not; it must be a daily experience with them.
Well, I must write a begging letter.'

It was raining and windy. He went slowly homewards, and was on the point
of entering the public door of the flats when his uneasiness became so
great that he turned and walked past. If he went in, he must at
once write his appeal for money, and he felt that he could not. The
degradation seemed too great.

Was there no way of getting over the next few weeks? Rent, of course,
would be due at Christmas, but that payment might be postponed; it was
only a question of buying food and fuel. Amy had offered to ask her
mother for a few pounds; it would be cowardly to put this task upon her
now that he had promised to meet the difficulty himself. What man in
all London could and would lend him money? He reviewed the list of his
acquaintances, but there was only one to whom he could appeal with the
slightest hope--that was Carter.

Half an hour later he entered that same hospital door through which,
some years ago, he had passed as a half-starved applicant for work. The
matron met him.

'Is Mr Carter here?'

'No, sir. But we expect him any minute. Will you wait?'

He entered the familiar office, and sat down. At the table where he had
been wont to work, a young clerk was writing. If only all the events of
the last few years could be undone, and he, with no soul dependent upon
hi