equired an effort to leave the club. He took
up the newspapers, and threw them aside, one after another. Not one
of the unfortunate writers and reporters could please him on that
inauspicious day. It was only while he was lighting his second cigar
that he remembered Mrs. Farnaby's unread letter to him. By this time, he
was more than weary of his own affairs. He read the letter.

"I find the people who have my happiness at their mercy both dilatory
and greedy." (Mrs. Farnaby wrote); "but the little that I can persuade
them to tell me is very favourable to my hopes. I am still, to my
annoyance, only in personal communication with the hateful old woman.
The young man either sends messages, or writes to me through the post.
By this latter means he has accurately described, not only in which
of my child's feet the fault exists, but the exact position which it
occupies. Here, you will agree with me, is positive evidence that he is
speaking the truth, whoever he is.

"But for this reassuring circumstance, I should feel inclined to be
suspicious of some things--of the obstinate manner, for instance, in
which the young man keeps himself concealed; also, of his privately
warning me not to trust the woman who is his own messenger, and not to
tell her on any account of the information which his letters convey
to me. I feel that I ought to be cautious with him on the question of
money--and yet, in my eagerness to see my darling, I am ready to
give him all that he asks for. In this uncertain state of mind, I am
restrained, strangely enough, by the old woman herself. She warns me
that he is the sort of man, if he once gets the money, to spare himself
the trouble of earning it. It is the one hold I have over him (she
says)--so I control the burning impatience that consumes me as well as I
can.

"No! I must not attempt to describe my own state of mind. When I tell
you that I am actually afraid of dying before I can give my sweet love
the first kiss, you will understand and pity me. When night comes, I
feel sometimes half mad.

"I send you my present address, in the hope that you will write and
cheer me a little. I must not ask you to come and see me yet. I am not
fit for it--and, besides, I am under a promise, in the present state of
the negotiations, to shut the door on my friends. It is easy enough to
do that; I have no friend, Amelius, but you.

"Try to feel compassionately towards me, my kind-hearted boy. For so
many long year