ft him to follow that----'

He ground his teeth hard on the word he was fain to use.

'Steady!' said the doctor--' steady!'

'That Ignis Fatuus,' groaned Paul. 'Is that mild enough for you?'

The doctor knew everything. There was no further shame in making a clean
breast of it.

'It's better than what you were going to say,' the doctor answered,
'whatever it was. I hate vulgarity as the devil hates virtue. It's a
pretty sex; I know something about it You seem to have lighted upon a
pretty sample.'

Just at this instant there came a tap at the door, and the voice of the
maid was heard saying, 'This is the room, sir.' The door opened, and in
walked Armstrong the elder.

'Dad!' cried Paul

His father held his hand and looked at him.

'I've been sore troubled by your silence, lad,'he said. 'I've had hard
work to find ye. Ye might have written.'

'I was coming to see you,' said Paul, 'so soon as I could travel. When
will that be, doctor?'

'In a fortnight's time, perhaps,' the doctor answered--'not much
earlier.'

The doctor went his way, and the father and son were together.

'You're out of Darco's service, I understand?' said Armstrong. 'He wrote
kindly about ye, but he said you'd parted. Why did you leave him, Paul?'

Paul was penitent and feeble of body, and his father was his dearest.
Bit by bit he told his story, or as much of it as he could be told.

'Man,' said Armstrong, 'ye're beginning airly.'

CHAPTER XIII

The Dreamer dreamed, and the dream showed the old ramshackle, bankrupt
printing-office at Castle Barfield again. Paul was back there. The thing
had happened with a strange in-evitableness. He had gone home and had
suffered a relapse, and had again recovered, and all his savings
were expended. There had come a rush of work with which the solitary
journeyman and his boy could not cope. Paul had gone to their
assistance, and, the unusual flow of work continuing, he had stayed
there. He made many applications by letter for other employment, and
answered many advertisements, but nothing happened to deliver him. His
heart galled him daily, for he had seen something of the world, and had
tasted a first-night triumph as part-author of a play, and had mixed on
equal terms with people who were very far away from his present sphere.
The county election, which had brought the increase of business, was
over and done with. Paul succeeded the journeyman, who went his way and
found employment elsew