saved!’
He sipped his coffee again.
‘I have never come across an English editor who treated me with anything like that consideration and general kindliness. How the man had time, in his position, to see me so often, and do things in such a human way, I can’t understand. Imagine anyone trying the same at the office of a London newspaper! To begin with, one couldn’t see the editor at all. I shall always think with profound gratitude of that man with the peaked brown beard and pleasant smile.’
‘But did the pea-nuts come after that!’ inquired Dora.
‘Alas! they did. For some months I supported myself in Chicago, writing for that same paper, and for others. But at length the flow of my inspiration was checked; I had written myself out. And I began to grow home-sick, wanted to get back to England. The result was that I found myself one day in New York again, but without money enough to pay for a passage home. I tried to write one more story. But it happened, as I was looking over newspapers in a reading-room, that I saw one of my Chicago tales copied into a paper published at Troy. Now Troy was not very far off; and it occurred to me that, if I went there, the editor of this paper might be disposed to employ me, seeing he had a taste for my fiction. And I went, up the Hudson by steamboat. On landing at Troy I was as badly off as when I reached Chicago; I had less than a dollar. And the worst of it was I had come on a vain errand; the editor treated me with scant courtesy, and no work was to be got. I took a little room, paying for it day by day, and in the meantime I fed on those loathsome pea-nuts, buying a handful in the street now and then. And I assure you I looked starvation in the face.’
‘What sort of a town is Troy?’ asked Marian, speaking for the first time.
‘Don’t ask me. They make straw hats there principally, and they sell pea-nuts. More I remember not.’
‘But you didn’t starve to death,’ said Maud.
‘No, I just didn’t. I went one afternoon into a lawyer’s office, thinking I might get some copying work, and there I found an odd-looking old man, sitting with an open Bible on his knees. He explained to me that he wasn’t the lawyer; that the lawyer was away on business, and that he was just guarding the office. Well, could he help me? He meditated, and a thought occurred to him. “Go,” he said, “to such-and-such a boarding-house, and ask for Mr Freeman Sterling. He is just starting on a business tour, and wants a young man to accompany him.” I didn’t dream of asking what the business was, but sped, as fast as my trembling limbs would carry me, to the address he had mentioned. I asked for Mr Freeman Sterling, and found him. He was a photographer, and his business at present was to go about getting orders for the reproducing of old portraits. A good-natured young fellow. He said he liked the look of me, and on the spot engaged me to assist him in a house-to-house visitation. He would pay for my board and lodging, and give me a commission on all the orders I obtained. Forthwith I sat down to a “square meal,” and ate—my conscience, how I ate!’
‘You were not eminently successful in that pursuit, I think?’ said Jasper.
‘I don’t think I got half-a-dozen orders. Yet that good Samaritan supported me for five or six weeks, whilst we travelled from Troy to Boston. It couldn’t go on; I was ashamed of myself; at last I told him that we must part. Upon my word, I believe he would have paid my expenses for another month; why, I can’t understand. But he had a vast respect for me because I had written in newspapers, and I do seriously think that he didn’t like to tell me I was a useless fellow. We parted on the very best of terms in Boston.’
‘And you again had recourse to pea-nuts?’ asked Dora.
‘Well, no. In the meantime I had written to someone in England, begging the loan of just enough money to enable me to get home. The money came a day after I had seen Sterling off by train.’
An hour and a half quickly passed, and Jasper, who wished to have a few minutes of Marian’s company before it was time for her to go, cast a significant glance at his sisters. Dora said innocently:
‘You wished me to tell you when it was half-past nine, Marian.’
And Marian rose. This was a signal Whelpdale could not disregard. Immediately he made ready for his own departure, and in less than five minutes was gone, his face at the last moment expressing blended delight and pain.
‘Too good of you to have asked me to come,’ he said with gratitude to Jasper, who went to the door with him. ‘You are a happy man, by Jove! A happy man!’
When Jasper returned to the room his sisters had vanished. Marian stood by the fire. He drew near to her, took her hands, and repeated laughingly Whelpdale’s last words.
‘Is it true?’ she asked.
‘Tolerably true, I think.’
‘Then I am as happy as you are.’
He released her hands, and moved a little apart.
‘Marian, I have been thinking about that letter to your father. I had better get it written, don’t you think?’
She gazed at him with troubled eyes.
‘Perhaps you had. Though we said it might be delayed until—’
‘Yes, I know. But I suspect you had rather I didn’t wait any longer. Isn’t that the truth?’
‘Partly. Do just as you wish, Jasper.’
‘I’ll go and see him, if you like.’
‘I am so afraid— No, writing will be better.’
‘Very well. Then he shall have the letter tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Don’t let it come before the last post. I had so much rather not. Manage it, if you can.’
‘Very well. Now go and say good-night to the girls. It’s a vile night, and you must get home as soon as possible.’