d the old man, moaning
and shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the
warmth of heart which Hornett's returning confidence had taught him
had all died away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self
again, old and maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries.

'Phil might help me,' he said shakily. 'He 'could, but he won't. He's
got plenty of money. If I'd been a rogue, James Hornett,' and there he
flashed up again, ever so little, 'I could have robbed my own flesh and
blood with safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee,
and I could have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any
minute.'

'Mr. Phil, sir,' said Hornett 'Mr. Phil hasn't got much money left'

'Why not?' the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes.

'He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the
rest, as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.'

Bommaney turned back towards the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very
impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all
the same. The sense of his son's high feeling of honour gave him a
keen throb of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck
pursued his offspring.

The loss was double. It had disgraced and ruined him, and had robbed his
son of his inheritance.

'Hornett,' he said, 'James Hornett.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I was brought up,' the old man said, in a muffled voice, advancing and
retiring his hands before the fire, and chafing them automatically, 'I
was brought up by Christian parents. I never did a dishonourable act in
all my days. I have been a God-fearing man and a--a steady church-goer.
I give it all up. I renounce it. I don't believe in God. I don't believe
in religion. I don't believe in being honest. It's a--it's a vile wicked
world, Hornett, and it's my belief the devil rules it.'

'Oh, sir,' cried Hornett,' you mustn't talk like this, sir. You must
excuse me speaking free, sir, but I can't stand by and hear you talk
like that. I can't listen to it, sir--I can't really. I've never said
a disrespectful word to you, Mr. Bommaney, but I really must speak out
now, sir. It isn't respectable, sir, to talk like that.'

After this there was a long silence, and Bommaney, who had repouched the
bottle after his last application to it, consulted it again, and handed
it wordlessly to Hornett, without looking at him.

'Phil might,' he murmured in a whil