“Is our age an age of genuine pity? I have my doubts. It is pre-eminently an age of bustle, and fuss, and fidget; but I think we are lacking in tenderness.”—Dr. Jessop.

After the pain of his farewells had begun to wear off a little, Ralph, being naturally of a hopeful temperament, turned not without some pleasurable feelings to the thought of the future that lay before him. More and more his old dreams of becoming an actor filled his mind, and in the sudden change which had befallen his fortunes he saw something not unlike a distinct call to return to his first ideal. He clung all the more to the thought because of the uprooting he had just undergone, and as he travelled through the Surrey hills on that summer evening, found comfort in the anchorage of a firm resolve to do all that was in his power to fit himself for his new vocation. That one did not climb the ladder at a bound he of course knew well enough, and he had sense to guess that it would be a difficult matter to get room even on the lowest step of the ladder. A hard struggle lay before him, but he was full of vigorous young life and did not shrink from the prospect. Then, too, he was keenly conscious of the relief of no longer depending upon the Mactavishes. He could exactly sympathise with Esther in “Bleak House,” who was always sensible of filling a place in her godmother’s establishment which ought to have been empty. It was something after all to be free, even though not precisely knowing how he was to keep body and soul together.

With the exception of old Mr. Marriott there seemed few to whom he could apply for advice. His late master at Winchester was away in Switzerland; the Professor and Frau Rosenwald were in Dresden and were little likely to be able to help him, while of friends of his own age he had scarcely any, owing to Lady Mactavish’s dislike to his accepting invitations for the holidays which would have made return invitations necessary.

On reaching Charing Cross he went straight to Sir Matthew’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate, left his luggage there, arranged to come the next day and pack the few things he had in his room, and then walked to Ebury Street to inquire whether Mr. Marriott were at home. London had such a deserted air that he began to fear that the solicitor would have joined in the general exodus. But fortune favoured him, Mr. Marriott was in town still and had just returned from the City. He was ushered into a comfortable library, where, in a few moments, the old lawyer joined him, receiving him in such a kindly and courteous way that the friendless feeling which had taken possession of him on his arrival in London quite left him.

“I hope you will excuse my coming at such an hour and to your private house, but I half feared you might be away and I was very anxious for your advice,” he said, when the old man’s greetings were ended.

“I’m heartily glad you did come to-night,” said Mr. Marriott. “For to-morrow I go to Switzerland with my sister and my daughter. Is Sir Matthew still in town? Are you staying with him?”

“He has this very day turned me out of his house,” said Ralph, and he briefly told the lawyer what had passed.

“This seems a serious matter,” said Mr. Marriott. “We must talk it over together, but in the meantime, I will send round for your things, and you will, I hope, spend the night here. After dinner, we will put our heads together, and see what can be done.”

Ralph could only gratefully accept the hospitality, and it proved to be just the genuine old-fashioned hospitality that does the heart good, and is as unlike its forced counterfeit as real fruit is unlike its waxen imitation.

Old Mr. Marriott’s sister proved to be one of those eternally young people who at seventy have more capacity for enjoying life than many girls of eighteen. Her vivacious face, with its ever varying expression, her kindly human interest in all things and all people, did more to drive bitter recollections from Ralph’s mind than anything else could have done. Moreover, he lost his heart to pretty Katharine Marriott, though she was many years his senior. Her large, serious, brown eyes, and her air of gentle dignity seemed to him perfection; he could have imagined her to be some stately Spanish lady in her black, lace dress, and though she said little to him, her whole manner was full of sympathetic charm. When the ladies had left the table, Mr. Marriott began to make further inquiries as to what had passed that afternoon.

“Is it not possible,” he suggested, “that you too readily took Sir Matthew at his word? He has been kind to you all these years, has he not?”

“He has carried out what he undertook,” said Ralph, “and twice, no—three times—I remember that he really spoke kindly to me. For the rest of the six years he has never noticed me at all except to find fault.”

“Do you mean that you got into trouble? That your school reports were bad or anything of that sort?”

“No, they were decent enough, and I was never exactly in any scrape, but somehow, in little ways I always managed to displease him; spoke too much, or too little, or too loud, or not distinctly. If one made the least noise in coming into a room or closing a door he couldn’t endure it, or if one stole in with elaborate care and quietness, he would start and say a stealthy step was intolerable to him. As to breakfast, the only meal we ever had with him as children, it used to be a time of torture, for if you held your knife or fork in a way which did not exactly meet his ideal way of holding a knife and fork, he made you feel that you had committed a crime.”

“So there was never much love lost between you,” said Mr. Marriott, with a smile. “Well it is what I feared would happen when I last saw you. Did he often mention your father’s name?”

“Hardly ever, except when some guest was there who was likely to be impressed with his kindness in having adopted a poor clergyman’s son,” said Ralph, flushing hotly at certain galling recollections. “It was never until this afternoon, though, that he dared to speak of my father as an unpractical fool who had left me a beggar, and to taunt me with the high ideals which would never have kept me from starving.”

“And did this lead to your quarrel?” said the lawyer, his brows contracting a little.

“Yes,” said Ralph, “I replied that my father was at least an honest man, and he seemed to take that as a sort of personal affront—I’m sure I don’t know why. He went into a towering rage and ordered me out of his sight.”

“He is morbidly sensitive as to his reputation,” said Mr. Marriott, “and no doubt he thought you knew something to his disadvantage. Did it ever occur to you as strange that he should have adopted you?”

“At first I thought it was because he had really cared for my father and because he was my godfather, but before long I began to think it was chiefly as a sort of telling advertisement,” said Ralph, with a touch of bitterness in his tone.

“All three notions were probably right,” said the lawyer, “but there was yet another reason of which I can tell you something. On the day we reached Whinhaven and began to look through your father’s papers, one of the very first things I came across in his blotting-book was the rough draft of a letter with a blank for the name in the first line. Seeing that it bore reference to the unlucky investment he had made, I glanced through it. It bitterly reproached the man he was writing to, for having recommended him to place his money in the company which had just gone into liquidation, and alluded to assurances that had been given him of this friend’s close knowledge of all the details, and complete confidence in the safety of the company. I recollect that one sentence referred to you, and your father said, ‘Should this illness of mine prove fatal, I look to you, as Ralph’s godfather, to do what you can for him, for it was in consequence of your advice that I made this unfortunate speculation.’”

Ralph started to his feet. “It was Sir Matthew then who ruined him!”

“Well,” said the lawyer, “on reading that I looked up and casually asked him if he knew who your godfathers were, he replied that he was one, and that to the best of his recollection, the other had been a distant kinsman of your father’s, a certain Sir Richard Denmead, who had died a few years before. Then, without further comment, I handed him the letter, remarking that of course, I had no idea on reading it that it bore reference to himself. He was naturally annoyed and upset, but was obliged to own that it was the draft of the letter he had received. He was doing what he could to justify himself when you came into the room, and what passed after that you no doubt remember.”

“I remember,” said Ralph, “that he patronised me—he—my father’s murderer. The word is not a bit too strong for him. He murdered my father just as truly as if he had stabbed him to the heart. It was not the cold that killed him, it was the misery and the depression and the anxiety for the future. And this false friend of his is the man that goes about opening bazaars, and posing as a profoundly religious man! Faugh! It’s revolting!”

“I have never liked Sir Matthew Mactavish,” said Mr. Marriott, quietly. “It is wonderful to me how he impresses people; there must be some germ of greatness in him or he couldn’t do it. I am quite aware that the discovery of the truth must make you feel very bitterly towards him, but if you will take an old man’s advice you will dwell upon the past as little as possible. You can do no good by thinking of the injury he has done you, and you will have to be very careful how you speak of him, or in an angry moment you may make yourself liable to an action for slander; legally you know a thing may be perfectly true, but if maliciously uttered and in a way that injures another in his calling it may be nevertheless slander. So you must not proclaim your wrongs from the housetops. Now the question is what are you to do to support yourself?”

“I want to try my luck on the stage,” said Ralph. “It was my wish long ago, and I believe that I might make something of it. I shall never be much good at examinations.”

“It seems rather the fashion for young fellows to try it nowadays,” said the lawyer, “but I should think the life was a very hard one, and like all other callings in this country it is much overcrowded. Still you might do worse. I will give you a letter to Barry Sterne; he is a client of mine and might possibly be able to help you. At any rate he would give you his advice.”

Ralph caught at the suggestion, and when the next morning the Marriotts started for Switzerland they left him in excellent spirits.

“Are you quite sure you have enough to live on until you get work,” asked the old lawyer, drawing him aside at the last moment. “I will gladly lend you something.”

“Thank you,” replied Ralph. “But I have enough to live on till the end of September.”

“And by that time we shall be in London again,” said Mr. Marriott. “Be sure you come to see us and let us know how you prosper.”

It was not without some trepidation that later in the morning Ralph presented himself at the house of Barry Sterne, the great actor. He sent in Mr. Marriott’s letter of introduction and waited nervously in a small back sitting-room, the window of which opened into one of those miniature ferneries which one associates with the operating room of a dentist. Three dejected gold-fish swam aimlessly up and down the narrow tank, and the ferns looked as if they pined for country air. It was a relief when at length he was summoned into the adjoining room. Here the sun was shining, and there was a general sense of ease and comfort, Barry Sterne himself harmonising very well with his setting, for he was a good-natured looking giant with a most genial manner, and his broad, expansive face beamed in a very kindly fashion on his visitor.

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you,” he said, but the words carried no sting because the tone was so delightful. “I have hundreds of these applications, and it’s about the most disagreeable part of my life to be for ever saying ‘no’ to people.”

He put a few questions to him, all the while observing him attentively with his keen eyes.

“Well, you see,” he remarked, leaning back easily in his chair and telling off the various items on his fingers as he proceeded. “Things seem to me to stand like this. You have a good presence, a good voice, a good manner; but you have no experience, you have had no special preparation, you have no money, and you have no friends or relatives in the profession. There are three points for you and four against you. That means that you will have a very hard struggle, and will have to be content to take any mortal thing you can get. Are you prepared for that?”

“I am prepared to begin at the very bottom of the profession if only it will give me a real chance of getting on,” said Ralph.

“To make a fool of yourself in a pantomime, for instance,” said the actor, eyeing him keenly. “Or to walk on and say nothing in a piece that runs for a couple of hundred nights?”

“Yes, I would do it,” said Ralph, thoughtfully. “If, in the meantime, I was really learning and making some way.”

“Right,” said Barry Sterne. “That’s the way to set to work. But as a rule a gentleman thinks he must step into the first ranks of the profession straight away, which is a confounded mistake. I’ll write you a note of introduction to Costa, the agent. You may thoroughly trust him, and he may perhaps be able sooner or later to put you in the way of something. I wish I knew of any opening for you. But I’m off to America next month with Miss Greville’s Company.”

The name instantly recalled Macneillie to Ralph’s mind.

“When I was a small boy,” he said, “Mr. Macneillie was once very good to me. If he were in London still, I might have gone to him. Do you know what has become of him.”

“Hugh Macneillie? Why he would be precisely the man for you. He went to America about six years ago, had a tremendous success over there, and when he came back to England started a travelling company of his own. Oh, Macneillie is a sterling fellow, you couldn’t do better than try to get in with him. Costa will be able to tell you his whereabouts.”

After that, with a few kindly words and good wishes, Ralph found himself dismissed.

The day was intensely hot; however, he set off at once for the agent’s, handed in Barry Sterne’s letter, was sharply scrutinised by Costa’s keen Jewish eyes, and had his name entered upon the books, after paying five shillings.

“You must not be too sanguine,” said the agent, his dark melancholy face contrasting oddly with Ralph’s fresh colouring, and hopeful eyes. “I have one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine names down of members of the profession who are out of employment, or of people who seek to enter the profession. You bring up the total to two thousand.”

Ralph turned a little pale. “Is it so bad as that,” he said. “Then I have no chance at all it seems to me.”

He asked for Macneillie’s present address and went off in very low spirits to write his letter, pack up his worldly goods, and take up his quarters in the rooms which Geraghty had recommended.

People seldom do things well when they are in low spirits, and Ralph, who detested giving trouble or asking favours, wrote a stiff, short letter to Macneillie, asking his advice and inquiring whether he could possibly give him a place in his company. It was precisely the sort of letter which Macneillie received by the dozen from stage-struck youths in all parts of the country. Had he spoken of his boyish hero-worship of the actor, or of their encounter at Richmond, there would have been a human touch about the letter which would at once have appealed to the Scotsman; he would certainly have made a special effort for one so closely connected with the most tragic day of his life. But Ralph after floundering hopelessly in a sentence which alluded to the past, tore up his sheet of paper and wrote the bald, curt note, which so ill conveyed the real state of his case.

Macneillie, wearily returning from a rehearsal of four hours’ length, in which his temper had been severely tried, found the missive in his dreary lodgings at a south-coast watering place, hastily glanced through the contents and thrust the letter into his letter-clip among other similar requests, about which there was no immediate hurry. A fortnight later he wrote the following short reply:

“Dear Sir,

“I have no opening at present in my company, and if you really intend to go into the profession, and have realised that it demands incessant and most arduous work, I should strongly advise you to begin at the beginning of all things. Try to get taken on as a super at one of the leading theatres, where you will have opportunities for studying really great actors. Costa is a trustworthy agent.

“Yours truly,

“Hugh Macneillie.”

The letter chanced to arrive in Paradise Street on a foggy September evening when Ralph was in particularly low spirits. He had expected much from Macneillie and was proportionately disappointed. It seemed almost as if an old friend had shut the door in his face, nor did he quite realise that few men as busy, and as much tormented by importunate scribblers as Macneillie, would have troubled to answer his appeal at all. What was he to do? Where was he to turn for work? And how much longer would Evereld’s money hold out? The question was more easily than satisfactorily answered. It was clearly impossible that he could exist much longer in Paradise Street, and though its dingy room and bare, scanty furniture was far from inviting, yet he had grown fond of his good-natured landlord and took a kindly interest in the whole family of Doolans, with their easy, happy-go-lucky ways, and strong sense of humour. Life was lonely enough now. What would it be if he were altogether without a home in this great wilderness of London?