s face before that morning, frequently overcast it again;
and there was the same shadow of uneasy observation of him on the comely
face of his wife. More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog,
it appeared to Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it;
and, in one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of
the dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw
tears rise to Mr Meagles's eyes as he hurried out of the room. It was
either the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not
insensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with a more
delicate affection than usual, to express to her good father how much
she loved him; that it was on this account that she fell behind the
rest, both as they went to church and as they returned from it, and
took his arm. He could not have sworn but that as he walked alone in
the garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous glimpse of her in
her father's room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest
tenderness, and weeping on her father's shoulder.

The latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep the
house, look over Mr Meagles's collection, and beguile the time with
conversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and said it
in an off-hand and amusing manner. He appeared to be an artist by
profession, and to have been at Rome some time; yet he had a slight,
careless, amateur way with him--a perceptible limp, both in his devotion
to art and his attainments--which Clennam could scarcely understand.

He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out
of window.

'You know Mr Gowan?' he said in a low voice.

'I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday when they are at home.'

'An artist, I infer from what he says?'

'A sort of a one,' said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone.

'What sort of a one?' asked Clennam, with a smile.

'Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall pace,'
said Doyce, 'and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly.'

Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a very
distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal Gowan,
originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned off as a
Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and had died at
his post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly defending it to the
last extremity. In consideration of this eminent pub