o little Jack on the doorstep. When he had
gone, I stood for a moment listening to the sound of his footsteps dying
away down the road. I did not know that I should never hear them again.
For, although I did not want Jack any more as a model, I was resolved
not to lose sight of him. To him I owed much. I would pay my debt by
making the child's future very different from his past. I had vague
thoughts of educating him carefully for some reasonable life. I believe,
Uniacke, yes, on my soul, I believe that I had bland visions of the
sea-urchin being happy and prosperous on a high stool in an office, at
home with ledgers, a contented little clerk, whose horizon was bounded
by an A B C shop, and whose summer pastime was fly-killing. My big work
finished, a sort of eager idiocy seized me. I was as a man drugged. My
faculties must have been besotted, I was in a dream. Three days
afterwards I woke from it and learnt that there may be grandeur, yes,
grandeur, dramatic in its force, tragic in its height and depth, in a
tipsy old woman of Drury Lane."

"Jack's mother?"

The painter nodded. All the time he had been talking the wind had
steadily increased, and the uproar of the embracing sea had been growing
louder. The windows rattled like musketry, the red curtains shook as if
in fear. Now there came a knock at the door.

"Come in," said the clergyman.

The maid appeared.

"Do you want anything more to-night, sir?"

"No, thank you, Kate. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."

The door shut.

"Is it late?" said the painter.

"Nearly eleven. That is all."

"Are you tired, Uniacke? perhaps you are accustomed to go to bed early?"

"Not very. Besides to-night the gale would keep me awake; and I want to
hear the end of your story."

"Then--Drury Lane invaded me one evening, smelling of gin, with black
bonnet cocked over one eye, an impossible umbrella, broken boots,
straying hair, a mouth full of objurgation, and oaths, and crying
between times, 'Where's Jack? Where's my boy? What 'a yer done with my
boy,--yer!' I received Drury Lane with astonishment but, I hope, with
courtesy, and explained that my picture was finished, that Jack had left
me to go home, that I meant to take care of his future.

"My remarks were received with oaths, and the repeated demand to know
where Jack was. 'Isn't he at home?' I asked. 'No, nor he ain't been
'ome.' After a while I gathered that Jack had disappeared in darkness
from my house on the n