There was a fog on the river and while the tide was low no craft moved; but with its rising there came a stir of life, the mist that crept low on the brown water became articulate with syren voices and the thud of screws and the wash of water churned by belated boats. The steamers called eerily, out of the distance a heart-broken cry like no other thing on earth, suddenly near at hand a hoot terrific; but nothing was to be seen except rarely when out of the yellow impenetrableness a hull rose abruptly, a vague dark mass almost within touching distance. Julia stood on deck and listened while the little Dutch boat crept up; she found something fascinating in this strange, shrouded river, haunted, like a stream of the nether world, with lamentable bodiless voices. The fog had delayed them, of course; the afternoon was now far advanced; they had been compelled to wait some long time while the tide was down, and even now that it was coming up, they could go but slowly. The last through train to Marbridge would have left Paddington before the Tower Stairs were reached; but Julia did not mind that; she would go to Mr. Gillat; she could get a room at the house where he lodged for one night; she was glad at the thought of seeing Johnny again. Johnny, who knew the worst and loved and trusted still.

Gradually the fog lifted, not clearing right away, but enough for the last of the sunset to show smoky, rose in a wonderful tawny sky. All the russet-brown water kindled, each ripple edge catching a gleam of yellow, except to the eastward, where, by some trick of light, the main stream looked like a pool of dull silver, all pale and cold and holy. The wharves and factories on the banks revealed themselves, heavy black outlines, pinnacled with chimneys like some far-off spired city. All the craft that filled the river became clear too, those that lay still waiting repairs or cargo or the flood of the incoming tide, and those that moved—the black Norwegian timber boats, the dirty tramp steamers from far-off seas, the smooth grey-hulled liners, the long strings of loaded barges, that followed one another up the great waterway like camels in a desert caravan. Julia stood on deck and watched it all, and to her there seemed a certain sombre beauty and a something that moved her, though she could not tell why, with a curious baseless pride of race. And while she watched, the twilight fell, and the colours turned to purple and grey, and the lights twinkled out in the shipping and along the shore—hundreds and hundreds of lights; and gradually, like the murmur of the sea in a shell, the roar of the city grew on the ear, till at last the little boat reached the Stairs, where the old grey fortress looks down on the new grey bridge, and the restless river below.

A waterman put Julia ashore, after courtesies from the Custom House officers, and a porter took her and her belongings to Mark Lane station, from whence it was not difficult to get approximately near Berwick Street.

Mr. Gillat was not expecting visitors; he had no reason to imagine any one would come to see him; he did not imagine that the rings at the front bell could concern him; even when he heard steps coming up-stairs he only thought it was another lodger. It was not till Julia opened the door of the back room he now occupied that he had the least idea any one had come to see him.

"Julia!" he exclaimed, when he saw her standing on the threshold. "Dear, dear, dear me!"

"Yes," Julia said, "it really is I. I'm back again, you see;" and she came in and shut the door.

"Bless my soul!" Johnny said; "bless my soul! You're home again!"

"On my way home; I can't get to Marbridge to-night very comfortably, and I wanted to see you, so here I am. I have arranged with your landlady to let me have a room."

Mr. Gillat appeared quite overcome with joy and surprise, and it seemed to Julia, nervousness too. He led her to a chair; "Won't you sit down?" he said, placing it so that it commanded a view of the window and nothing else.

Julia sat down; she did not need to look at the room; she had already mastered most of its details. When she first came in she had seen that it was small and poor—a back bedroom, nothing more; an iron bed, not too tidy, stood in one corner, a washstand, with dirty water in the basin, in another. There was a painted chest of drawers opposite the window; one leg was missing, its place being supplied by a pile of old school-books; the top was adorned with a piece of newspaper in lieu of a cover, and one of the drawers stood partly open; no human efforts could get it shut, so Mr. Gillat's wardrobe was exposed to the public gaze—if the public happened to look that way. Julia did not; nor did she look towards the fire-place, where a very large towel-horse with a very small towel upon it acted as a stove ornament—plain proof that fires were unknown there. She looked across Mr. Gillat's cheap lamp to the window and the vista of chimney pots, which were very well in view, for the blind refused to come down and only draped the upper half of the window in a drooping fashion.

Johnny stood against the chest of drawers, striving vainly to push the refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was shabbier than ever; even his tie—his one extravagance used to be gay ties—was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on his feet. His round pink face was still round and pink; he did not look exactly older, though his grizzled little moustache was greyer, only somehow more puzzled and hurt by the ways of fate. Julia knew that that was the way he would age; experience would never teach him anything, although, as she suddenly realised, it had been trying lately.

She turned away from the window; "I have left my luggage at the station," she said; "I got out what I wanted in the waiting-room and brought it along in a parcel. I think I'll take it to my room now, if you don't mind, and wash my face and get rid of my hat—it is very heavy. I shan't be long."

She rose as she spoke, and Johnny bustled to open the door for her, too much a gentleman, in spite of all, to show he was glad to have her go and give him a chance to clear up. At the door she paused.

"You need not order supper, Johnny," she said; "I've seen about that."

Johnny stopped, his face a shade pinker. "Oh, but," he protested, "you shouldn't do that; you mustn't do that. I'll tell Mrs. Horn we won't have it; I'll make it all right with her; I was just going out to get a—a pork pie for myself."

It is to be feared this statement was no more veracious than Julia's, and certainly it was not nearly so well made; it would not have deceived a far less astute person than she, while hers would have deceived a far more astute person than he.

"A pork pie?" Julia said. "You have no business to eat such things in the evening at your time of life. I tell you I have settled supper; we had much better have what I have got. I could not bring you a present home from Holland; I left in a hurry, so I have bought supper instead. It is my present to you—and myself—I have selected just what I thought I could eat best; one has fancies, you know, after one has been seasick."

It would require an ingeniously bad sailor to be seasick while a Dutch cargo boat crept up the Thames in a fog, but Julia never spared the trimmings when she did do any lying. Johnny was quite satisfied and let her go to take off her hat—and the precious explosive which she still carried in it.

While she was gone he tidied the room to the best of his ability. He regretted that he had nowhere better to ask her; if he had the sitting-room he occupied when Rawson-Clew came in September, he would have felt quite grand. But that was a thing of the past, so he made the best of circumstances and went to the reckless extravagance of sixpenny worth of fire. When Julia came in, the towel-horse had been removed from the fender, and a fire was sputtering awkwardly in the grate, while Mr. Gillat, proud as a school-boy who has planned a surprise treat, was trying to coax the smoke up the damp chimney.

"Johnny!" Julia exclaimed, "what extravagance! It's quite a warm night, too!"

Johnny smiled delightedly. "I thought you'd be cold after your journey; you look quite pale and pinched," he said; "seasickness does leave one feeling chilly."

Julia repented of that unnecessary trimming of hers. "It is nice to have a fire," she said, striving not to cough at the choking smoke; "I don't need it a bit, but I don't know anything I should have enjoyed more; why, I haven't seen a real fire since I left England!"

She broke off to take the tongs from Mr. Gillat, who, in his efforts to improve the draught, had managed to shut the register. She opened it again, and in a little had the fire burning nicely. Johnny looked on and admired, and at her suggestion opened the window to let out the smoke. After that she managed to persuade the blind down, and, what is more, mended it so that it would go up again; then Mr. Gillat cleared the dressing-table and pulled it out into the middle of the room, and by that time supper was ready—fried steak and onions and bottled beer, with jam puffs and strong black coffee to follow—not exactly the things for one lately suffering from seasickness, but Julia tried them all except the bottled beer and seemed none the worse for it. And as for Johnny, if you had searched London over you could have found nothing more to his taste. He was a little troubled at the thought of what Julia must have spent, but she assured him she had her wages, so he was content. Seldom was one happier than Mr. Gillat at that supper, or afterwards, when the table was cleared and they drew up to the fire. They sat one each side of the fender on cane-seated chairs, the coffee on the hob, and Johnny smoking a Dutch cigar of Julia's providing. One can buy them at the railway stations in Holland, and she had scarcely more pleasure in giving them to Johnny than she had in smuggling home more than the permitted quantity.

"Now tell me about things," Julia said.

Johnny's face fell a little. During supper they had talked about her affairs and experiences, none of the unpleasant ones; she was determined not to have the supper spoiled by anything. Now, however, she felt that the time had come to hear the other side of things.

"I suppose father has been to town?" she remarked; she knew only too well that nothing else could account for Mr. Gillat's reduced circumstances. "When did he go?"

"He has not been gone much more than a week," Johnny said; "think of that now! If he'd stayed only a fortnight more he'd have been here to-night; it is a pity!"

"I don't think it is at all," Julia said frankly; "the pity is he ever came."

Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair. "Well, well," he said, "your mother wished it; she knows what she is about; she is a wonderful woman, a wonderful woman. I did what you told me, I really did."

Julia was sure of that, but she was also sure now that he had not been a match for her mother.

"I went down to Marbridge a week before your father was supposed to be coming to town; I warned him very likely I should have to go away, just as you said—and the very day I went to Marbridge he came to town, the very day—a week earlier than was talked of."

Julia could not repress an inclination to smile, not only at the neat way in which her mother had checkmated her, but also at the thought of that lady's face when Mr. Gillat presented himself at Marbridge, just as she was congratulating herself on being rid of the Captain.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did mother send you back to town again?"

"She did not send me," Mr. Gillat answered; "but, of course, I had to go, as she said; there was your father all alone here; it would be very dull for him; I couldn't leave him. Besides, he is not—not a strong man, it would be better—she would feel more easy if she thought he had his old friend with him, to see he didn't get into—you know."

"I know," Julia answered; "mother told you all this, then she paid your fare back again."

"Not paid my fare," Mr. Gillat corrected; "a lady could not offer to do such a thing; do you think I would ever have allowed it? I couldn't you know."

Julia's lips set straight; she had something of a man's contempt for small meannesses, and it is possible her judgment on this economy of her mother's was harder than any she had for the unjustifiable extravagances at which she guessed. She did not say anything of it to Mr. Gillat, she was too ashamed; not that he saw it in that light; he didn't think he had been in any way badly used, he never did.

"Well," she said, "then you came back to town and looked after father to the best of your abilities? I suppose you could not do much good?"

Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair again for a little. "You see," he said hesitatingly, "it was very dull for him; of course he wanted amusement."

"And of course he had it, though he could not afford it, and you paid?"

"Not to any great extent; oh, dear no, not to any great extent."

"No, because you had not got 'any great extent' to spend; what you had, limited the amount, I suppose, nothing else."

Mr. Gillat ignored this. "Your father," he said, rather uneasily, looking at her and then away again, "your father never had a very strong head, he—you know—he—"

"Has taken to drink?" Julia asked baldly. "As well as gambling he drinks now?"

"Oh, no," Johnny said quickly, "not exactly, that is—he does take more than he used, more than is good for him sometimes; not much is good for him, you know—he does take more, it is no good pretending he does not. But it was very dull for him; it did not suit him being here, I think; he used to get so low in spirits, what with his losses and feeling he was not wanted at home. He thinks a great deal of your mother, and he could not but feel that she does not think much of him to send him away like that; it hurt him, although, as he said to me more than once, no doubt he deserved it. It preyed on his mind; he seemed to want something to cheer him."

Julia nodded; she could understand the effect well enough, though the causes at work might not be quite clear. To her young judgment it seemed a little strange that her father should have never realised what a cumberer of the ground he was to his wife until she banished him "for his health." But so it evidently was, and after all she could believe it; like some others he had "made such a sinner of his conscience," that he could believe, not only his own lie, but the legends woven about him. They had all pretended things, he and they also; his position, too, had come gradually, he had got to accept it without thinking before it was an established fact. But now the truth had been brought home to him—more or less—and he was miserable, and, according to the custom of his sort, set to making bad worse as soon as ever he discovered it.

"Why did he go home last week?" she aroused herself to ask.

"He thought it his duty," was Johnny's surprising answer. "No, Mrs. Polkington did not send for him, she did not know he was coming; he decided for himself, he felt it would be better."

Mr. Gillat rambled on vaguely, but Julia was not slow to guess that the principal reason was to be found in the state of Johnny's finances. She questioned him as to when he had moved into the back room, and, finding it to be not long before her father's departure, guessed that discomfort, like the husks of the prodigal son, had awakened the thing dignified by the name of duty.

For a little she sat in silence, thinking matters over. Johnny smoked hard at the stump of his cigar, mended the fire and fidgeted, looking sideways at her.

"Don't worry about it," he ventured at last; "things'll look up, they will; when he's back at Marbridge with your mother he'll be all right. She always had a great influence over him, she had, indeed."

Julia said "Yes." But he did not feel there was much enthusiasm in the monosyllable, so he cast about in his mind for something to cheer her and thus remembered a very important matter.

"What an old fool I am!" he exclaimed. "There's something I ought to have told you the moment you came in, and I've clean forgotten it until now; it's good news, too! There is a lawyer wants to see you."

"What about?" Julia asked; she did not seem to naturally associate a lawyer with good news.

"A legacy," Johnny answered triumphantly.

Julia was much astonished; she could not imagine from whence it came, but before she asked she made the business-like inquiry, "How much?"

"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," Mr. Gillat was obliged to say; "still, a little's a help, you know; it may be a great help; you remember your father's Aunt Jane?"

Julia did, or rather she remembered the name. Great-aunt Jane was one of the relations the Polkingtons did not use; she was not rich enough or obliging enough to give any help, nor grand enough for conversational purposes. She never figured in Mrs. Polkington's talk except vaguely as "one of my husband's people in Norfolk;" this when she was explaining that the Captain came of East Anglian stock on his mother's side. Jane was only a step-aunt to the Captain; his mother had married above her family, her half-sister Jane had married a little beneath—a small farmer, in fact, whose farming had got smaller still before he died, which was long ago. Great-aunt Jane could not have much to leave any one, but, as Mr. Gillat said, anything was better than nothing; the real surprise was why it should have been left to Julia.

She asked Johnny about it, but he could not tell her much; he really knew very little except that there was something, and that the lawyer wanted her address and was annoyed when her relations could not give it. Indeed, even went so far as to think they would not, and that it would be his duty to take steps unless she was forthcoming soon.

"I had better go to his office to-morrow," Julia said; "I suppose you know where it is?"

Mr. Gillat did, and they arranged how they would go to-morrow, Johnny, who was to wait outside, solely for the pleasure and excitement of the expedition. After that they talked about the legacy and its probable amount for some time.

"I suppose no other benefactor came inquiring for me while I was away?" Julia said, after she had, to please Johnny and not her practical self, built several air castles with the legacy.

"No," Mr. Gillat said regretfully, "I'm afraid not; no one else asked for you. At least, some one did; a Mr. Rawson-Clew came here for your address."

"Did he though?" Julia asked; "Did he, indeed? What did he want it for?"

"Well, I don't know," Johnny was obliged to say; "I don't know that he gave any reason exactly; he said he had met you in Holland. I thought he was a friend of yours, he seemed to know a good deal about you."

"He was a friend," Julia said; "that was quite right. And so he came for my address. When was this?"

Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked: "Why did he come to you?"

Mr. Gillat did not quite know unless it was because he had failed elsewhere. "But he really came to see your father," he said.

"Did he see him?" Julia inquired.

"No, he was out. To tell the truth, I don't believe your father ever knew he came," Johnny confessed; "I meant to tell him, of course, but he was late home that day, and when he came he was—was—well, you know, he couldn't—it didn't seem—"

"Yes," said Julia, coming to the rescue, "he was drunk and could not understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed, it is better so; I am glad of it."

Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card; it bore Rawson-Clew's name and address of a London club.

"He gave me this," he said, "and told me to let him know if I heard from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything—if I thought you were."

Julia held out her hand. "You had better give it to me," she said; "I'll let him know all that is necessary. Thank you;" and she put the card away.

Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late. But she did not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew. So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm through him—honourable, certainly, and like him. He had come to Berwick Street and nearly seen her father—drunk; quite seen Mr. Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby and not very wise as usual. She was not ashamed; though for a moment she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it did not matter either way. He knew what she was and what her people were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more? They were not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they were. His sort! She laughed silently at the thought. The girls of his sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat! Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense of home-coming! If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and talked of her father's delinquencies! It would not have mattered; he knew she was of the stoke-hole—she had told him so—and not like the accomplished girls whom he usually met—who could not have got him the explosive!

She dropped her stocking to take the wide-necked bottle in her hands, deciding now how best to send it. It must go by post, in a good-sized wooden box, tightly packed, with a great deal of damp straw and wool; it ought to be safe that way. She would send it to the club address, it was fortunate she had it; but not yet, not until her own plans were clearer. It was just possible he might suspect her; it was hardly likely, but it was always as well to provide against remote contingencies, for if he tried and succeeded in verifying the suspicion everything would be spoiled. He had made sensible efforts to find her before, he might make equally sensible and more successful ones again, unless she left a way of escape clear for herself. Accordingly, so she determined, the explosive should not go yet, thought it had better be packed ready. She would get a box and packing to-morrow; to-night she could only copy the formula. She did this, printing it carefully on a strip of paper which she put on the bottle and coated with wax from her candle. She knew Herr Van de Greutz waxed labels sometimes to preserve them from the damp, so she felt sure the formula would be safe however wet she might make the packing.

The next day she went to the lawyer's office and heard all about the legacy and what she must do to prove her own identity and claim it. Mr. Gillat waited outside, pacing up and down the street, striving so hard to look casual that he aroused the suspicions of a not too acute policeman. The official was reassured, however, when Julia came out of the office and carried Johnny away to hear about the legacy.

"It is more than I thought," she said, before they were half down the street. "Fifty pounds a year, a small house—not much more than a cottage—and a garden and field; that's about what it comes to. The house is not worth much; it is in an unget-at-able part of Norfolk, in the sandy district towards the sea—the man spoke as if I knew where that was, but I don't—and the garden and field are not fertile. I don't suppose one could let the place, but one could live in it, if one wanted to."

"Yes, yes," Johnny said, "of course; you will have your own estate to retire to; quite an heiress—your mother will be pleased."

Julia could well imagine what skilful use her mother could make of the legacy; it would figure beautifully in conversation; no doubt Johnny was really thinking of this also, though he did not know it, for actually the thing would not commend itself to Mrs. Polkington so highly as a lump sum of money would have done.

"Why do you think Great-aunt Jane let it to me?" Julia asked. "Because I went out to work! It seems that father and we three girls are the nearest relations she had, and though we knew nothing about her, she made inquiries about us from time to time. When she heard I had gone abroad as companion or lady-help, she said she should leave all she had to me because I was the only one who even tried to do any honest work. You know that is not really strictly fair, because I did not altogether go with the idea of doing honest work; although, certainly, when I got there I did it."

Johnny did not quite follow this last, but it did not matter, the only thing that concerned him—or Julia much, either—was the fact that she was the possessor of £50 a year, a cottage, a garden, and a field. Johnny revelled in the idea and talked of what she was going to do right up to the time that he saw her into the train at Paddington. The only thing that put an end to his talking was the guard requesting him to stand away from the carriage door and Julia admonished him to leave go of the handle before the engine started. Julia herself did not talk so much of what she would do because she did not know; she felt, until she got home and saw how things were there, it was no good even to plan how and when to spend. Five pounds she did spend; it was really her saving accumulated by economy in Holland, but she reckoned it as drawn from her estate. Johnny found it in an envelope when he returned to the back bedroom, and with it a note to say that it was in part payment of Captain Polkington's debts, for which, of course, his family were responsible; "and if you make a fuss about it," the letter concluded, dropping the business-like style, "I shall trim 'Bouquet' to stink next time you come to Marbridge, and not come and sit with you."

I think Johnny sat down and wept over that letter; but then he was rather a silly old man and he had not had a good meal, except last night's steak and onions, for a fortnight.