When he was gone the old man took the candle from the mantelpiece, and held it up before the bearded face of the traveller.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said slowly; “at last!  It is you, Percival, my only son.  I thought you were dead long ago.  I had a right to consider you dead.”

“If I had thought my existence could be a matter of interest to you, I should hardly have so long refrained from all communication with you.  But your letters led me to suppose you utterly indifferent to my fate.”

“I offered you and your wife a home.”

“Yes, but on conditions that were impossible to me.  I had some pride in those days.  My education had not fitted me to stand behind a counter and drive hard bargains with dealers of doubtful honesty.  Nor could I bring my wife to such a home as this.”

“The time came when you left that poor creature without any home,” said the old man sternly.

“Necessity has no law, my dear father.  You may imagine that my life, without a profession and without any reliable resources, has been rather precarious.  When I seemed to have acted worst, I have been only the slave of circumstances.”

“Indeed! and have you no pity for the fate of your wife, no interest in the life of your only child?”

“My wife was a poor helpless creature, who contrived to make my life wretched,” Mr. Nowell, alias Percival, answered coolly.  “I gave her every sixpence I possessed when I sent her home to England; but luck went dead against me for a long time after that, and I could neither send her money nor go to her.  When I heard of her death, I heard in an indirect way that my child had been adopted by some old fool of a half-pay officer; and I was naturally glad of an accident which relieved me of a heavy incubus.  An opportunity occurred about the same time of my entering on a tolerably remunerative career as agent for some Belgian ironworks in America; and I had no option but to close with the offer at once or lose the chance altogether.  I sailed for New York within a fortnight after poor Lucy’s death, and have lived in America for the last fifteen years.  I have contrived to establish a tolerably flourishing trade there on my own account; a trade that only needs capital to become one of the first in New York.”

“Capital!” echoed Jacob Nowell; “I thought there was something wanted.  It would have been a foolish fancy to suppose that affection could have had anything to do with your coming to me.”

“My dear father, it is surely possible that affection and interest may sometimes go together.  Were I a pauper, I would not venture to present myself before you at all; but as a tolerably prosperous trader, with the ability to propose an alliance that should be to our mutual advantage, I considered I might fairly approach you.”

“I have no money to invest in your trade,” the old man answered sternly.  “I am a very poor man, impoverished for life by the wicked extravagance of your youth.  If you have come to me with any hope of obtaining money from me, you have wasted time and trouble.”