tear of sympathy, that had been
gathering ever since she entered the room, rolled down her cheeks.

She put up a corner of her apron to her eyes. "Alas, poor soul!" said
she. "Ay, I do know how hard it is to love and lose; but bethink you,
sir, 'tis the lot of man. Our own turn must come. And you have your
son left to thank God for, and a warm friend or two in this place, tho'
they be but humble."

"Ay, good wench," said the soldier, his iron nature touched for a
moment by her goodness and simplicity, "and none I value more than
thee. But leave me awhile."

The young woman's honest cheeks reddened at the praise of such a man.
"Your will's my pleasure, sir," said she, and retired, leaving the
capon and the wine.

Any little compunction he might have at refusing his confidence to this
humble friend did not trouble him long. He looked on women as leaky
vessels; and he had firmly resolved not to make his situation worse by
telling the base world that he was poor. Many a hard rub had put a
fine point on this man of steel.

He glozed the matter, too, in his own mind. "I told her no lie. I
have lost my best friend, for I've lost my money."

From that day Captain Cowen visited the tap-room no more, and indeed
seldom went out by daylight. He was all alone now, for Mr. Gardiner
was gone to Wiltshire to collect his rents. In his solitary chamber
Cowen ruminated his loss and the villany of mankind, and his busy brain
revolved scheme after scheme to repair the impending ruin of his son's
prospects. It was there the iron entered his soul. The example of the
very footpads he had baffled occurred to him in his more desperate
moments, but he fought the temptation down: and in due course one of
them was transported, and one hung; the other languished in Newgate.

By and by he began to be mysteriously busy, and the door always locked.
No clew was ever found to his labors but bits of melted wax in the
fender and a tuft or two of gray hair, and it was never discovered in
Knightsbridge that he often begged in the City at dusk, in a disguise
so perfect that a frequenter of the "Swan" once gave him a groat. Thus
did he levy his tax upon the stony place that had undone him.

Instead of taking his afternoon walk as heretofore, he would sit
disconsolate on the seat of a staircase window that looked into the
yard, and so take the air and sun: and it was owing to this new habit
he overheard, one day, a dialogue, in which th