ou, I know, not only forgive, but
sympathise.'

Of course, not a word passed with reference to Hugh Carnaby's business;
Redgrave's name was not mentioned. Sibyl, one felt, would decline to
recognise, in her own drawing-room, the gross necessities of life. Had
bankruptcy been impending, she would have ignored it with the same
perfection of repose. An inscrutable woman, who could look and smile at
one without conveying the faintest suggestion of her actual thoughts.

On his way to the club, Harvey puzzled over what seemed to him
Redgrave's singular behaviour. Why should a man in that position
volunteer pecuniary aid to an obscure and struggling firm? Could it be
genuine friendship for Hugh Carnaby? That sounded most improbable.
Perhaps Redgrave, like the majority of people in his world, appeared
much wealthier than he really was, and saw in Mackintosh's business a
reasonable hope of profit. In that case, and if the concern began to
flourish, might not an older friend of Carnaby's find lucrative
employment for his capital?

He had always thought with uttermost contempt of the man who allows
himself to be gripped, worried, dragged down, by artificial
necessities. Was he himself to become a victim of this social disease?
Was he, resistless, to be drawn into the muddy whirlpool, to spin round
and round among gibbering phantoms, abandoning himself with a grin of
inane conceit, or clutching in desperation at futile hopes? He
remembered his tranquil life between the mountains and the sea; his
earlier freedom, wandering in the sunlight of silent lands. Surely
there needed but a little common-sense, a little decision, to save
himself from this rushing current. One word to Alma--would it not
suffice? But of all things he dreaded to incur the charge of meanness,
of selfishness. That had ever been his weak point: in youth, well-nigh
a cause of ruin; in later life, impelling him to numberless
insincerities and follies.

However, the danger as yet only threatened. He was solvent; he had
still a reserve. It behoved him merely to avoid the risks of
speculation, and to check, in natural, unobtrusive ways, that tendency
to extravagance of living which was nowadays universal. Could he not
depend upon himself for this moderate manliness?

Cecil Morphew, though differing in all other respects from Hugh
Carnaby, showed a face which, like Hugh's, was growing prematurely old;
a fatigued complexion, sunken eyes; an expression mingled of dis