"Give it to me, nurse--I do," said her husband.

From that moment Geoffrey gave all the pent-up affection of his bruised
soul to this little daughter, and as the years went on they grew very
dear to each other. But an active-minded, strong-hearted, able-bodied
man cannot take a babe as the sole companion of his existence. Probably
Geoffrey would have found this out in time, and might have drifted into
some mode of life more or less undesirable, had not an accident occurred
to prevent it. In his dotage, Geoffrey's old uncle Sir Robert Bingham
fell a victim to the wiles of an adventuress and married her. Then he
promptly died, and eight months afterwards a posthumous son was born.

To Geoffrey this meant ruin. His allowance stopped and his expectations
vanished at one fell swoop. He pulled himself together, however, as
a brave-hearted man does under such a shock, and going to his wife he
explained to her that he must now work for his living, begging her to
break down the barrier that was between them and give him her sympathy
and help. She met him with tears and reproaches. The one thing that
touched her keenly, the one thing which she feared and hated was
poverty, and all that poverty means to women of her rank and nature. But
there was no help for it; the charming house in Bolton Steet had to be
given up, and purgatory must be faced, in a flat, near the Edgware Road.
Lady Honoria was miserable, indeed had it not been that fortunately for
herself she possessed plenty of relations more or less grand, whom she
might continually visit for weeks and even for months at a stretch, she
could scarcely have endured her altered life.

But strangely enough Geoffrey soon found that he was happier than he had
been since his marriage. To begin with, he set to work like a man, and
work is a great source of happiness to all vigorous-minded folk. It is
not, in truth, a particularly cheerful occupation to pass endless days
in hanging about law-courts amongst a crowd of unbriefed Juniors, and
many nights in reading up the law one has forgotten and threading the
many intricacies of the Judicature Act. But it happened that his father,
a younger brother of Sir Robert's, had been a solicitor, and though he
was dead, and all direct interest with the firm was severed, yet another
uncle remained in it, and the partners did not forget Geoffrey in his
difficulties.

They sent him what work they could without offending their standing
counsel