Needless to say, however, that monotonous as the days were, and blank the distance, time and the hour, and that unmelodious screw got through them. Gervase landed at Queenstown, taking with him every newspaper he could collect as he hurried to the railway. But to be sure, all that he could get was the issue of that day, not the now far back numbers which would have carried on the story for which he thirsted. That story was now over; it had ended, and there was no more of it. Burton, Baber, & Co. had gone down like a stone in that sea of mishaps and misadventure; the public interest had deserted it, and no man spoke of it any more. Gervase, when he came to think, saw very quickly how it was, and called himself a fool to expect anything different; but yet the shock of the disappointment was great. He sat ruminating it as the train dashed along through the silence of the night. It went quickly, making more visible progress than the steamboat, yet was ever slow to the galloping thoughts which were there and back again, impatient of their incompetence to attain any knowledge, a hundred times in an hour. At last he reached London on a mild and misty morning of May. The air was full of a quiet drizzle, the pavements wet with the mild innocent rain. There was nobody to meet him, naturally enough, for nobody knew that this was the day of his arrival. He could not help thinking that had Madeline been arriving, miserable and full of trouble, he would have divined it. He did not even know where to go, in the sudden ignorance which had come upon him of all his own most intimate affairs. He could scarcely expect to find his father still at Harley Street, but this was the only place to which he could go, where he must, at least, find an address, something to guide him. It was miserable to put his portmanteaux into a cab, not knowing where he was to find a shelter; for though he gave Harley Street as his destination, he felt as if he were about to drive vaguely through the cold streets, he knew not whither, in search of some spot in which he could take refuge. It seemed another day of feverish suspense before he got to the well-known street, where everything looked so terribly the same as usual, as if no change had happened. When he reached the door, and dashing out before the cab had stopped, knocked loudly with a summons that seemed to wake echoes all round, and to go through and through his own aching brain, Gervase had come to the extreme limit of his strength. He felt helplessly that he had no voice left with which to ask the question, “Where has my father gone?”

To his utter astonishment—an astonishment which was at the same time collapse—he found himself gazing speechless into the face of his father’s old servant. Gilbert opened to him as he had done a thousand times, and stood with a faint smile of welcome on his face, holding it wide for him to enter. Gervase could only stand and stare and gasp. The sight of the familiar face, the unchanged aspect of everything, overwhelmed him more completely than the strange and stern novelty which he expected, would have done. A mist came over his eyes. He stumbled in within the shelter of his father’s door. “Gilbert—my father?” he said huskily, incapable of more.

“Come in, sir. Come in, sir. I’ll tell you—everything. Lord! Mr Gervase, don’t faint—that would be worst of all.”

“My father?” he said.

“Come in, sir; and let me send away your cab, and get your things; and then I’ll tell you—everything; only go in, for God’s sake, and sit down!”

He went in: the house was unchanged, but there was a great silence in it, or so he thought, a sense of vacancy—suspense almost as awful as ever, but his senses coming back to him, and the familiar scene round him restoring his self-control and his strength. He stood leaning upon the mantelpiece, listening to the sound of the portmanteaux placed in the hall, and the cab turning from the door. “Gilbert, where is my father?”—these were the only words he could say.

“You must want some breakfast, Mr Gervase,—something to keep up your strength. My wife’s in the house, sir; she’ll get you a cup of tea in a minute.”

“My father, Gilbert?”

“For anything as I know to the contrary, he’s quite well, Mr Gervase—as well as you or me.”

“Where is he?” cried the young man. “Is it all true?—and why are you here?”

“There is a great deal as is true, sir. I don’t know how much you’ve heard. Master left me here to wait for you. Everything is settled honourable and straightforward, and no dispersions on character. I was to tell you that the first thing. And the house is yours, sir. Them was master’s last words. ‘Tell him there’s no stain upon his name, and the house is his. Tell my boy that the first thing,’ was the last words he said.”

“What do you mean by last words? My father is not—he is not—— O God! is this what I have come home to?” the young man cried.

“He’s not dead, sir, if that’s what you mean. There’s nothing happened to him, so far as I know. He’s—he’s left town, Mr Gervase; but that’s all, sir,—that’s all, I give you my word.”

“Left town!—where is my father? Don’t play with me, Gilbert. I’m not a fool, nor a child. Tell me the truth.”

“That’s the truth, sir, as sure as you live. Master has had a bad time; but he’s come out of it all with clean hands, that’s what I heard the gentlemen say. He might have begun again next morning, if he had liked. They made him a present of the house, and he’s left it to you.”

Gervase made an impatient gesture. “Do I care for the house?—where is my father?” he cried.

“If I was to swear upon the Bible, sir, I could say no more. He has left town. I can’t tell you where he is, for he has left no address. He said he didn’t want no letters forwarded. Mr Gervase, I am telling you the truth. There has nothing happened to him. He has left town. Some thought it was for the best; and some thought as it was a pity, master being still but a young man, so to speak. If you’d have been here, it’d have given him courage. But it so being as there was nobody belonging to him, and he a bit worn out with all that has happened—and no patience with Mr Wickham, as wanted him very bad to begin again——”

“Wickham! did that fellow dare——”

“Well, sir, even Mr Wickham, though he was rash, had no bad meaning. He’s been taken into Boyd Brothers, and they say he’s got everything in his hand already——”

Gervase turned with impatience from these details; except a feeling of fierce impatience with Wickham, who he could not forget was his own nominee, he had no further interest in him, and would rather have heard his name no more. He allowed Gilbert to bring him breakfast, and sat down perforce in that old accustomed place, every corner of which was familiar to him from his childhood, and which was now exactly as it had been for so many, many years; not a chair out of place, not a feature changed, the serious old clock going on steadily upon its habitual march, ticking off every deliberate moment, as when day by day its old master had compared his watch with it before leaving home. Gervase seemed to see his father on the hearth-rug with his watch in his hand—the emblem of punctuality and exactitude—making that daily comparison. Such revolutions in life tell doubly when the former tenor has been so exact and perfectly regulated. Where had he gone? He was not the man to take to wandering, to go abroad, to find refuge in those banal places where so many unfortunates hide their heads among the haunts of noisy gaiety and excitement. Gervase could not picture his father in any such scene. He could not imagine him poor, with anything but a lavish expenditure, and the power of doing as he pleased in respect to money and money’s worth. It was far more difficult to account for him when he disappeared than for most men. Amusement was a thing which had no existence for Mr Burton. Without his office, his business occupations, the Exchange, the semi-political, semi-commercial discussions which were his chief intellectual pleasure at his club and his dinner-parties, what could he be or do?

When Gervase had taken what refreshment he could, and made himself presentable, he took his way slowly down the street to see Madeline;—slowly, though he was a man in love and going to see his betrothed—almost reluctantly, though he loved her. He knew that the impression was a false one, yet it was difficult not to feel as if Madeline had deserted him, and in his present state of mind every interest except one seemed to have failed. A sense of having been beaten and humiliated, which was almost physical as well as mental,—a certain giddiness of mind and brain which affected, he thought, his very powers of walking as well as thinking, and which was only increased and aggravated by the familiar aspect of everything round—so unchanged, so undisturbed, so out of sympathy with his state—possessed him. He seemed to himself to knock against everything, to stumble over the crossings or any irregularity in the pavement; and that the few people whom he met in the morning street turned round after him, either to note his unsteadiness, or to say, “That’s Burton’s son.” He would have preferred to walk on past Madeline’s door, to keep moving mechanically, to go on and on along miles of dull street, where nobody would require him to speak or to take any notice. And it was with almost a painful sense of unwillingness that he stopped at Mr Thursley’s door. But it was opened almost before he could knock by Madeline herself, who must have been watching for him, and who rushed into his arms before he could draw breath. “Oh, Gervase, you have come at last!” she cried. “Thank God!”

“Is it anything to thank God for?” he said; “when all the mischief is done; when nothing can be mended? It is like my feebleness to come too late.”

“Don’t say so—don’t say so—it is everything to me,” she cried. “Oh, Gervase, I should have met you when you arrived, but we did not know if you would come by Queenstown. I have been looking out for you since break of day. Papa said you could not have heard, and that it was better not to startle you by any unusual fuss.”

“Was he so simple as to think ill news would not travel?” Gervase said, with a faint smile. “Tell me, Madeline, where is my father? Perhaps you know.”

“Nobody knows,” she said, shaking her head; “but there is no reason why that should be bad news, Gervase. Papa says he quite understands it; he thinks Mr Burton will come back—after a while. He thinks he wants to put a little interval between him and all these events. He says he quite understands his feelings. Gervase——”

“Yes, dear. I can’t feel anything, I can’t say anything. I am half paralysed, and half mad. Think how things were when I went away: and to come back and find everything gone—disappeared as if it had never been: the dreadful empty mockery of a house which they say is mine, and my father, and all that he cared for, gone, gone like a dream. Sometimes I think I will go crazy,—everything seems to be whirling and unsteady. I am giddy with pain and confusion and ignorance, and the blank all around.”

He held her hand, but loosely, languidly, in a feeble clasp. She grasped his tightly, closely, as if to bring him back to himself.

“All that he cared for is not gone. Let my father tell you. He knows the right thing to say. Oh, Gervase, because you are in great trouble, don’t turn all love and tenderness away!”

“Madeline!”

“Oh, Gervase, if you only knew how I have thought of you night and day! I think I should have gone to you had there been any certainty where you were. I should not have let anything stand in the way, when you were in trouble. Don’t turn from me now. Papa is coming back from the office to lunch, on the chance of your arrival. He wants to do everything that is kind. Don’t, don’t turn from us, Gervase, because you are in trouble, which is only a reason for clinging together. Is it not a reason for clinging together?” she cried, with tears in her eyes.

And poor Gervase felt that he ought to feel above every other sentiment the sweetness of this consolation, for which he had so thirsted and hungered in his long misery at sea; thinking that just like this his Madeline would speak and look. But now that she was there before him, in his arms, speaking like Love itself, looking with eyes full of the tenderest sympathy, he was no longer able to feel anything. He caressed her clinging hand, but his natural impulse would have been to relax his hold, to put it away; not that he loved her less, but that the confusion in his mind, the fevered condition of his whole being, was incapable of any natural or happy sentiment. The miserable change that had come over all his private concerns, the ruin of his family, his father’s disappearance, even that curious maddening contradiction, in the midst of all the ruin, of the unchanged house, which he was told was his, filled up his thoughts, his heart, his very veins, so that there was room in him for nothing else.

Mr Thursley appeared soon after for luncheon, and his coming was a relief. He gave Gervase a coherent account of everything that had happened. Mr Thursley was evidently not without an impression that Burton, Baber, & Co. had been in a doubtful condition for some time; but he described with considerable vehemence the action of young Wickham, the risky transactions into which his impetuosity had drawn his partner, and the extravagance he had committed, his head turned by the greatness of the position which he thought he had attained—evidently with the intention of diverting the mind of Gervase from any unfilial thoughts. When the crash came eventually, he described how entirely honourable and digne the attitude of Mr Burton had been. The ultimate catastrophe had been brought about by the failure of one or two companies with which the house had become connected. Mr Burton had at once placed everything he had at the disposal of his creditors. His books, his private affairs, his property to the last penny, had been made available; and his honourable conduct had been fully acknowledged and warmly applauded. Offers had been made to him, on all sides, of help to begin anew his commercial career; but these offers had been gratefully declined. He had said that he was himself too old for a fresh start, and that his son was not disposed, or perhaps adapted, for a business life. Finally, all had been settled, and as a proof of their admiration for Mr Burton’s conduct and character, the creditors had requested his acceptance of the house and all its contents, upon which no profane hand had ever been laid.

“And the West India money?” Gervase said.

“You had come to no conclusion at the time of the settlement,” said Mr Thursley. “The West India estate was personal property. It is a thing that has ceased to count for much in anybody’s calculations. Nothing but your sense and true business spirit—let me say so, my boy, whether you take it as a compliment or not—could have made so much of it. Thank heaven, Gervase, it is a nest-egg with which nobody has anything to do.”

“Was there no mention made of it, then, at all? Did nobody know? Was he unaware that he had so much to fall back upon?”

“He was not unaware,” said Mr Thursley, uneasily. “He did get your last letter—but not till after the arrangement was made and all settled. He was too glad to think that you—would still have something to depend upon.”

“I don’t understand,” Gervase said, almost rudely; “the arrangement—what does that mean?—was everything paid?”

“Yes; everything was paid—that was demanded. It was all settled—in the most honourable way.”

“There is something behind that I don’t understand:—settled in an honourable way—all paid that was demanded. What does that mean, Mr Thursley? It sounds like something equivocal, something not so honest as the words. Tell me, without the commercial slang. I’m too dull to understand.”

“That’s not very respectful, my young friend.”

“Papa, Gervase doesn’t mean to be disrespectful. Don’t you see that he is done, that there is no strength left in him?”

“I mean no harm,” Gervase said. “For God’s sake, tell me in plain words—was everything paid?”

“I wish you knew a little more of the commercial slang you despise. You will misunderstand what I am about to say. Everything was paid—which it was possible to pay. An arrangement was made which everybody accepted—fifteen shillings in the pound—the next thing to payment in full. It was all settled and accepted by universal consent.”

Gervase got up stupidly from his chair. “I thought there must be some quibble in it,” he said, the heavy cloud so lowering over his face that for the moment he was almost, even to Madeline’s eyes, unrecognisable. “Will the West India money make it up?”

“Don’t be a fool, Gervase,” said Mr Thursley, sharply. “Everything, I tell you, is settled. You have no right to interfere.”

Gervase stood regarding him blankly: his food was untasted on his plate, the meal not half over. He stood up, unconscious of all the circumstances—unconscious even of Madeline’s anxious look dwelling on him. “Will the West India money do it?” he said.