, the altercation went so far
that, when we met at dinner, we never addressed or noticed each other.
I 'll never forget that dinner. Wake seemed to range himself on Towers's
side, and Collins looked half disposed to take mine; everything that
was said by one was sure to be capped by some sharp impertinence
by another, and we sat there interchanging slights and sneers and
half-covert insolences for hours.

"If there had been a steamer for Southampton, I 'd have started next
morning. I told Collins so when I went to my room; but he was much
opposed to this, and said, 'If we draw back now, it must be with Towers
and Wake,--all or none!' We passed nearly the entire night in discussing
the point, and could not agree on it.

"I suppose that Hawke must have heard how ill we all got on together.
There was a little girl--a daughter by his first wife--always in and out
of the room where we were; and though in appearance a mere infant,
the shrewdest, craftiest little sprite I ever beheld. Now this Clara, I
suspect, told Hawke everything that passed. I know for certain that
she was in the flower-garden, outside the window, during a very angry
altercation between Towers and myself, and when I went up afterwards to
see Hawke he knew the whole story.

"What a day that was! I had asked Loo to let me speak a few words with
her alone, and, after great hesitation, she promised to meet me in the
garden in the evening. I had determined on telling her everything. I was
resolved to break with Towers and Wake, and I trusted to her clear head
to advise how best to do it. The greater part of the morning Towers was
up in Hawke's room; he had always an immense influence over Godfrey; he
knew things about him none others had ever heard of, and, when he came
downstairs, he took the doctor--it was your old Professor, that mad
fellow--into the library, and spent full an hour with him. When Towers
came out afterwards, he seemed to have got over his angry feeling
towards me, and, coming up in all seeming frankness, took my arm, and
led me out into the shrubbery.

"'Hawke is sinking rapidly,' said he; 'the doctor says he cannot
possibly recover.'

"'Indeed!' said I, amazed. 'What does he call the malady?'

"'He says it's a break-up,--a general smash,--lungs, liver, brain, all
destroyed; a common complaint with fellows who have lived hard.' He
looked at me steadily, almost fiercely, as he said this, but I seemed
quite insensible to his gaze. 'He 'l