the same as before; but their mutual liking subsisted.  Obliged to retrench his hospitality, Warburton never seemed altogether at his ease when Franks was in his room; nor could he overcome what seemed to him the shame of having asked payment of a debt from a needy friend, notwithstanding the fact, loudly declared by Franks himself, that nothing could have been more beneficial to the debtor’s moral health.  So Will listened rather than talked, and was sometimes too obviously in no mood for any sort of converse.

Sherwood he had not seen since the disastrous optimist’s flight into Wales; nor had there come any remittance from him since the cheque for a hundred pounds.  Two or three times, however, Godfrey had written—­thoroughly characteristic letters—­warm, sanguine, self-reproachful.  From Wales he had crossed over to Ireland, where he was working at a scheme for making a fortune out of Irish eggs and poultry.  In what the “work” consisted, was not clear, for he had no money, beyond a small loan from his relative which enabled him to live; but he sent a sheet of foolscap covered with computations whereby his project was proved to be thoroughly practical and vastly lucrative.

Meanwhile, he had made one new acquaintance, which was at first merely a source of amusement to him, but little by little became something more.  In the winter days, when his business was new, there one day came into the shop a rather sour-lipped and querulous-voiced lady, who after much discussion of prices, made a modest purchase and asked that the goods might be sent for her.  On hearing her name —­Mrs. Cross—­the grocer smiled, for he remembered that the Crosses of whom he knew from Norbert Franks, lived at Walham Green, and the artist’s description of Mrs. Cross tallied very well with the aspect and manner of this customer.  Once or twice the lady returned; then, on a day of very bad weather, there came in her place a much younger and decidedly more pleasing person, whom Will took to be Mrs. Cross’s daughter.  Facial resemblance there was none discoverable; in bearing, in look, in tone, the two were different as women could be; but at the younger lady’s second visit, his surmise was confirmed, for she begged him to change a five-pound note, and, as the custom is in London shops, endorsed it with her name—­“Bertha Cross.”  Franks had never spoken much of Miss Cross; “rather a nice sort of girl,” was as far as his appreciation went.  And with this judgment Will at once agreed; before long, he would have inclined to be more express in his good opinion.  Before summer came, he found himself looking forward to the girl’s appearance in the shop, with a sense of disappointment when—­as generally happened—­Mrs. Cross came in person.  The charm of the young face lay for him in its ever-present suggestion of a roguishly winsome smile, which made it difficult not to watch too intently the play of her eyes and lips.  Then, her way of speaking, which was altogether her own.  It infused with a humorous possibility the driest, most matter-of-fact remarks, and Will had to guard himself against the temptation to reply in a corresponding note.