nted to see your father upon very
special and urgent business.'

'My father?' the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained
surprise. 'Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven't heard the news?'

'The news?' cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune
threatened him. 'What news?'

'My father, sir,' said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of
professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something
of the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the
relatives of a patient, 'my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus
in the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to
recover.'

'God bless my soul!' Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast,
and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man
upon a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart.
Shipwrecked already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he
could have asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly
desired to see Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for
him, except to listen to his troubles and take charge of the eight
thousand pounds which tempted him, and yet the disappointment seemed as
heavy and as hard to bear as anything he had hitherto endured. He sat
staring forlornly before him, with tears in his eyes, and young Mr.
Barter, in much astonishment at his susceptibility and tenderness, sat
watching him. Something slid from Bommaney's hands with a rustle, and
dropped upon the floor. Young Mr. Barter made a mere hint or beginning
of a movement, as if he would have picked it up for him. Bommaney
made no movement at all, but stared before him with his blue-gray eyes
filling more and more with tears, until two or three brimmed over and
trickled down his cheeks. He said, 'God bless my soul!' once more,
mechanically, and restored what remained of his bundle of papers to his
pocket. Young Mr. Barter looked with one swift and vivid glance from the
fallen bundle to his guest's face, then back again. Bommaney rose from
his seat, buttoned his overcoat with awkward and lingering fingers, and
put on his hat. He was evidently unconscious of his own tears, and made
no attempt to disguise them, or to wipe them away. He said, 'God bless
my soul!' a third time, and then, shaking young Mr. Barter by the hand,
murmured that he was sorry, very sorry, and so went stupidly away.
Young Mr. Barter accompanied him to th