‘What do you want?  I’ve got nothing for you,’ she cried impatiently.

‘I want to see Miss Snowdon, please, mum—­Miss Snowdon, please—­’

‘Miss Snowdon?  Then why didn’t you say so?  Step inside.’

A few moments and Jane came running downstairs.

‘Pennyloaf!’

Ah! that was the voice that did good.  How it comforted and blessed, after the hospital, and the miserable room in which the dead child was left lying, and the rainy street!

CHAPTER XXX

ON A BARREN SHORE

About this time Mr. Scawthorne received one morning a letter which, though not unexpected, caused him some annoyance, and even anxiety.  It was signed ‘C.  V.,’ and made brief request for an interview on the evening of the next day at Waterloo Station.

The room in which our friend sat at breakfast was of such very modest appearance that it seemed to argue but poor remuneration for the services rendered by him in the office of Messrs. Percival & Peel.  It was a parlour on the second floor of a lodging-house in Chelsea; Scawthorne’s graceful person and professional bearing were out of place amid the trivial appointments.  He lived here for the simple reason that in order to enjoy a few of the luxuries of civilisation he had to spend as little as possible on bare necessaries.  His habits away from home were those of a man to whom a few pounds are no serious consideration; his pleasant dinner at the restaurant, his occasional stall at a theatre, his easy acquaintance with easy livers of various kinds, had become indispensable to him, and as a matter of course his expenditure increased although his income kept at the same figure.  That figure was not contemptible, regard had to the path by which he had come thus far; Mr. Percival esteemed his abilities highly, and behaved to him with generosity.  Ten years ago Scawthorne would have lost his senses with joy at the prospect of such a salary; to-day he found it miserably insufficient to the demands he made upon life.  Paltry debts harassed him; inabilities fretted his temperament and his pride; it irked him to have no better abode than this musty corner to which he could never invite an acquaintance.  And then, notwithstanding his mental endowments, his keen social sense, his native tact, in all London not one refined home was open to him, not one domestic circle of educated people could he approach and find a welcome.

Scawthorne was passing out of the stage when a man seeks only the gratification of his propensities; he began to focus his outlook upon the world, and to feel the significance of maturity.  The double existence he was compelled to lead—­that of a laborious and clear-brained man of business in office hours, that of a hungry rascal in the time which was his own—­not only impressed him with a sense of danger, but made him profoundly dissatisfied with the unreality of what he called his enjoyments.