e window he looked out
on the darkening street. All vulgarity of detail was lost in the
softening dusk, and there was something almost picturesque in the
opposite roof, whose outline was delicately drawn on the pale-blue sky.
Everything was refined, subdued and shadowy in the tender light, but
Percival, gazing, saw no charm in the little twilight picture. Sorrow
may be soothed by quiet loveliness, but perplexities absorb all our
faculties, and we do not heed the beauty of the world, which is simple
and unperplexed. If it is forced upon our notice, the contrast irritates
us: it is almost an impertinence. Percival would have been angry had he
been called upon to feel the poetry which Bertie had found only a few
days before in the bit of houseleek growing on that arid waste of tiles.
It is true that in that dim light the houseleek was only a dusky little
knob.

Should he go and meet Judith? Should he wait for her? What would she do?
Should he go to St. Sylvester's? By the time he could reach the church
the choristers would have assembled: would the organist be there? While
he doubted what to do his fingers were in his waistcoat pocket, and he
incidentally discovered that he had only a shilling and a
threepenny-piece in it. He went quickly to the table and struck a light.
Since he had enrolled himself as Judith Lisle's true knight, ready to go
anywhere or render her any service in her need, it would be as well to
be better provided with the sinews of war. He unlocked the little
writing-case which stood on a side table.

Percival's carefulness in money matters had helped him very much in his
poverty. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to him that,
since his income was fixed, his expenditure must be made to fit it. He
hardly understood the difficulties of that numerous class of which
Bertie was an example--men who consider certain items of expenditure as
fixed and unchangeable, let their income be what it may. But Percival
had retained one remembrance of his wealthier days, a familiarity with
money. People who have been stinted all their lives are accustomed to
handle silver and copper, but are anxious about gold and frightened at
notes or cheques. Percival, though he was quite conscious of the
relative greatness of small sums to his narrow means, retained the old
habit of thinking them small, and never bestowed an anxious thought on
the little hoard in his desk. As he went to it that evening he
remembered with s