Jeffreys, hidden in another part of the great city, sunk to a lower
depth of misery than ever. To him it seemed now that his bad name had
taken form in the face of young Forrester, and was dogging him in
adversity more relentlessly even than in prosperity. It comforted him
not at all to think it had saved him from a drunkard's ruin. He
despised himself, when he came to himself, for having been scared so
weakly. Yet he avoided his old quarters, and turned his back on the one
friend he had, rather than face his evil genius again.

His evil genius! Was he blinded then, that he saw in all this nothing
but evil and despair? Was he so numbed that he could not feel a
Father's hand leading him even through the mist? Had he forgotten that
two little boys far away were praying for him? Had he ceased to feel
that young Forrester himself might be somewhere, not far away, ready to
forgive?

He was blinded, and could see nothing through the mists.

He half envied his new fellow-lodgers in the den at Ratcliff. Four of
them, at least, stood a chance of being hanged. Yet they managed to
shake off care and live merrily.

"Come, old gallus," said one young fellow, who in that place was the
hero of a recent "mystery" in the West End, "perk up. You're safe
enough here. Don't be down. We're all in the same boat. Save up them
long faces for eight o'clock in the morning at Old Bailey. Don't spoil
our fun."

It was half pathetic, this appeal; and Jeffreys for a day tried to be
cheerful. But he could not do it, and considerately went somewhere
else.

How long was it to go on? A time came when he could get no work, and
starvation stared him in the face. But a dying boy bequeathed him a
loaf, and once again he was doomed to live.

But a loaf, and the proceeds of a week's odd jobs, came to an end. And
now once more, as he sits in the rain in Regent's Park, he faces
something more than the weather. He has not tasted food for two whole
days, and for all he knows may never taste it again.

So he sits there, with his eyes still on that football ground, and his
ears ringing still with the merry shouts of the departed boys.

The scene changes as he stays on. It is a football field still, but not
the brown patch in a London park. There are high trees, throwing
shadows across the green turf, and in the distance an old red school-
house. And the boys are no longer the lively London urchins with their
red, white, and blue