s?" He rose trembling. "You mind your own business. I
can look into things myself. There'd 'ave been no need to look into
them at all if you 'adn't robbed and deceived me. Robbed and deceived
me, I said. You took your education--which _I_ gave _you_ to put into
_my_ business--you took it out of the business, and set up with it on
your own account. And I tell you you might as well 'ave made off with
a few thousands out of my till. Robbing's wot _you've_ been guilty of
in the sight of God; and you can come and talk to me about your
conscience. I don't understand your kind of conscience--Keith." There
was still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son's name.

"Perhaps not," said Keith sorrowfully. "I don't understand it myself."

He walked with his father to Holborn, silently, through the drizzling
rain. He held an umbrella over him, while they waited, still
silently, for the Liverpool Street omnibus. He noticed with some
anxiety that the old man walked queerly, shuffling and trailing his
left foot, that he had difficulty in mounting the step of the omnibus,
and was got into his seat only after much heaving and harrying on the
part of the conductor. His face and attitude, as he sank crouching
into his seat, were those of a man returning from the funeral of his
last hope.

And in Keith's heart there was sorrow, too, as for something dead and
departed.

CHAPTER XLIX

If, much to Rickman's regret, Flossie did not take kindly to Miss
Roots, very soon after her engagement she discovered her bosom friend
in Miss Ada Bishop. The friendship was not founded, as are so many
feminine attachments, upon fantasy or caprice, but rested securely on
the enduring commonplace. If Flossie respected Ada because of her
knowledge of dress, and her remarkable insight into the ways of
gentlemen, Ada admired Flossie because of the engagement, which, after
all, was not (like some girls' engagements) an airy possibility or a
fiction, but an accomplished fact.

This attachment, together with the firm possession of Keith, helped to
tide Flossie over the tedium of waiting. Only one thing was wanting to
complete her happiness, and even that the thoughtful gods provided.

About six o'clock one evening, as Rickman was going out of the house,
he was thrust violently back into the passage by some one coming in.
It was young Spinks; and the luggage that he carried in his hand gave
a frightful impetus to his entry. At the sight of Rickman