Mr Broune as he walked to his newspaper office experienced all those pangs of doubt which a man feels when he has just done that which for days and weeks past he has almost resolved that he had better leave undone.  That last apparition which he had encountered at his lady love’s door certainly had not tended to reassure him.  What curse can be much greater than that inflicted by a drunken, reprobate son?  The evil, when in the course of things it comes upon a man, has to be borne; but why should a man in middle life unnecessarily afflict himself with so terrible a misfortune?  The woman, too, was devoted to the cub!  Then thousands of other thoughts crowded upon him.  How would this new life suit him?  He must have a new house, and new ways...