out, and—and tried his patience once or twice, when he came to my office on business. Sir John excused it, not very kindly; but still he excused it. I don't complain of Sir John! I don't complain now of my wife.' He pointed a trembling finger at his miserable crape-covered beaver hat on the floor. 'I'm in mourning for her,' he said, faintly. 'She died nearly a year ago, in the county asylum here.'
His mouth began to work convulsively. He took up the glass of wine at his side, and, instead of sipping it this time, drained it to the bottom. 'I'm not much used to wine, sir,' he said, conscious, apparently, of the flush that flew into his face as he drank, and still observant of the obligations of politeness amid all the misery of the recollections that he was calling up.
'I beg, Mr. Bashwood, you will not distress yourself by telling me any more,' said Midwinter, recoiling from any further sanction on his part of a disclosure which had already bared the sorrows of the unhappy man before him to the quick.
'I'm much obliged to you, sir,' replied Mr. Bashwood. 'But if I don't detain you too long, and if you will please to remember that Mr. Pedgift's directions to me were very particular—and, besides, I only mentioned my late wife because if she hadn't tried Sir John's patience to begin with, things might have turned out differently—' He paused, gave up the disjointed sentence in which he had involved himself, and tried another. 'I had only two children, sir,' he went on, advancing to a new point in his narrative, 'a boy and a girl. The girl died when she was a baby. My son lived to grow up; and it was my son who lost me my place. I did my best for him; I got him into a respectable office in London. They wouldn't take him without security. I'm afraid it was imprudent; but I had no rich friends to help me, and I became security. My boy turned out badly, sir. He—perhaps you will kindly understand what I mean, if I say he behaved dishonestly. His employers consented, at my entreaty, to let him off without prosecuting. I begged very hard—I was fond of my son James—and I took him home, and did my best to reform him. He wouldn't stay with me; he went away again to London; he—I beg your pardon, sir! I'm afraid I'm confusing things; I'm afraid I'm wandering from the point.'
'No, no,' said Midwinter, kindly. 'If you think it right to tell me this sad story, tell it in your own way. Have you seen your son since he left you to go to London?'
'No, sir. He's in London still, for all I know. When I last heard of him, he was getting his bread—not very creditably. He was employed, under the inspector, at the Private Inquiry Office in Shadyside Place.'
He spoke those words—apparently (as events then stood) the most irrelevant to the matter in hand that had yet escaped him; actually (as events were soon to be) the most vitally important that he had uttered yet—he spoke those words absently, looking about him in confusion, and trying vainly to recover the lost thread of his narrative.
Midwinter compassionately helped him. 'You were telling me,' he said, 'that your son had been the cause of your losing your place. How did that happen?'
'In this way, sir,' said Mr. Bashwood, getting back again excitedly into the right train of thought. 'His employers consented to let him off; but they came down on his security; and I was the man. I suppose they were not to blame; the security covered their loss. I couldn't pay it all out of my savings; I had to borrow—on the word of a man, sir, I couldn't help it—I had to borrow. My creditor pressed me; it seemed cruel, but, if he wanted the money, I suppose it was only just. I was sold out of house and home. I dare say other gentlemen would have said what Sir John said; I dare say most people would have refused to keep a steward who had had the bailiffs after him, and his furniture sold in the neighborhood. That was how it ended, Mr. Midwinter. I needn't detain you any longer—here is Sir John's address, if you wish to apply to him.' Midwinter generously refused to receive the address.
'Thank you kindly, sir,' said Mr. Bashwood, getting tremulously on his legs. 'There is nothing more, I think, except—except that Mr. Pedgift will speak for me, if you wish to inquire into my conduct in his service. I'm very much indebted to Mr. Pedgift; he's a little rough with me sometimes, but, if he hadn't taken me into his office, I think I should have gone to the workhouse when I left Sir John, I was so broken down.' He picked up his dingy old hat from the floor. 'I won't intrude any longer, sir. I shall be happy to call again if you wish to have time to consider before you decide-'
'I want no time to consider after what you have told me,' replied Midwinter, warmly, his memory busy, while he spoke, with the time when
'Anything, sir—anything you think right. I won't intrude any longer; I'll leave it to you and Mr. Armadale.'
'I will send for Mr. Armadale, if you like,' said Midwinter, following him into the hall. 'But I am afraid he has as little experience in matters of this kind as I have. Perhaps, if you see no objection, we might be guided by Mr. Pedgift?'
Mr. Bashwood caught eagerly at the last suggestion, pushing his retreat, while he spoke, as far as the front door. 'Yes, sir—oh, yes, yes! nobody better than Mr. Pedgift. Don't—pray don't disturb Mr. Armadale!' His watery eyes looked quite wild with nervous alarm as he turned round for a moment in the light of the hall lamp to make that polite request. If sending for Allan had been equivalent to unchaining a ferocious watch-dog, Mr. Bashwood could hardly have been more anxious to stop the proceeding. 'I wish you kindly good-evening, sir,' he went on, getting out to the steps. 'I'm much obliged to you. I will be scrupulously punctual on Monday morning—I hope—I think—I'm sure you will soon learn everything I can teach you. It's not difficult—oh dear, no—not difficult at all! I wish you kindly good-evening, sir. A beautiful night; yes, indeed, a beautiful night for a walk home.'
With those words, all dropping out of his lips one on the top of the other, and without noticing, in his agony of embarrassment at effecting his departure, Midwinter's outstretched hand, he went noiselessly down the steps, and was lost in the darkness of the night.
As Midwinter turned to re-enter the house, the dining-room door opened and his friend met him in the hall.
'Has Mr. Bashwood gone?' asked Allan.
'He has gone,' replied Midwinter, 'after telling me a very sad story, and leaving me a little ashamed of myself for having doubted him without any just cause. I have arranged that he is to give me my first lesson in the steward's office on Monday morning.'
'All right,' said Allan. 'You needn't be afraid, old boy, of my interrupting you over your studies. I dare say I'm wrong—but I don't like Mr. Bashwood.'
'I dare say
