When Arthur reached the shop he found Mr. Tollady standing in the doorway with his hat on, as if prepared to go out.

“Could you sit in the parlour for about an hour, Arthur?” he asked; “I have to go into the City.”

Arthur looked up and saw that the old man’s face was much paler than usual and wore a haggard look. As he took out his watch to see the time his hand trembled perceptibly. He had the appearance of a man just risen from a bed of sickness.

“Isn’t the business such that I could see to for you?” asked Arthur. “You don’t look well, Mr. Tollady. It is too far for you to go this hot day.”

“No, my dear boy; no, thank you,” replied the old man, with a forced smile. “I must see to it myself — myself. I hope not to be long. Have dinner as usual, of course. I have just had a mouthful of lunch and that will serve me till tea-time.”

Arthur brought down his drawing-board to the back parlour, and tried to get on with his work. But reflection upon his own sources of annoyance and on Mr. Tollady’s evident suffering, the cause of which the old man persisted in keeping a secret, held his thoughts from the subject in hand. The time went very slowly; it seemed as though the printer would never return. When, at length, Mr. Tollady reentered the shop, about three o’clock, it was in a state of exhaustion which he in vain endeavoured to conceal. Dropping his trembling limbs into the wonted chair, he let his head fall backwards, and sat gazing at the ceiling in a manner which seemed to bespeak lethargy both of mind and of body. Arthur walked to his side, when he had sat thus for a few minutes, and laid his hand upon his shoulder.

“Let me persuade you to lie down upon the bed for an hour,” he said, in an affectionate tone. “It pains me to see you like this, Mr. Tollady. Have you no regard for me that you refuse to pay more attention to your health, though I every day beg you to? Your face is as pale as death; I can see you are suffering. I am neglecting my duty in allowing you to remain without advice. Will you let me go and ask a doctor to see you? I am determined to do so on my own account if you leave it later than to-night.”

“You shall have your way, Arthur,” replied the old man, smiling feebly. “I have such pains here on my left side; just now they are very severe. I will go to the hospital tomorrow morning; I shall have better advice there. Let me rest a little now. Can you continue to draw here?”

“No, I cannot, Mr. Tollady!” exclaimed Arthur, as he saw the other pressing his hand against his side, and turning his face away to conceal its expression. “I cannot do anything whilst I see you suffer so! I am sure that you are suffering in your mind as well as in your body. This business you have been seeing to has distressed you, it has been burdening you for a long time. Are you sure that you do wisely in keeping it from me? Are you sure I could not help you in it? You do not still consider me a boy, in whom you cannot confide?”

Mr. Tollady held down his head in reflection for some moments, then he took Arthur’s hand and pressed it.

“I believe you are right, Arthur,” he said. “It is not because I have not the fullest confidence in you that I have hidden from you this burden on my life; I kept it to myself to spare you needless trouble. But, perhaps, it was not wise to do so; sooner or later you must know, and I have several times been on the point of telling you lately. Go upstairs to your work as usual, Arthur, for the present. After tea we will have an hour’s talk together. The pain has gone for the present; I feel better.”

Accordingly, when tea was over, Arthur remained downstairs in the parlour, where Mr. Tollady also sat, the door being left open in case of customers entering the shop. For a long time the old man remained buried in deep reverie, the expression of his face changing as it was in turn lit by a gleam of pleasure or darkened by the shadow of gloomy recollections. Unfortunately the shadows predominated, and from time to time a slight sigh broke from between his lips. At length the entrance of a customer called Arthur away for a moment, and when he returned Mr. Tollady had roused himself from his abstraction, and was prepared to speak.

“I have been thinking, Arthur,” he commenced, “that it would not be amiss for me to tell you the complete story of my life, now that I have made up my mind to let you know the trouble that has weighed upon me for the last few years. For very nearly forty years it has been a far from eventful life; during that time I have always lived very much as you have seen me. But my early years were neither so quiet nor, I think I may say, so profitably spent. As I look back from my sixty-fifth year upon those far-off memories, I can, at times, hardly believe that it is my own history I am reviewing, so utterly do I now find myself out of accord with all the impulses which then guided me. It is not, then, from any sense of pleasure that I go back to my early days, but because I think there is a lesson to be learned from them. Every thoughtful man is capable of receiving benefit from the contemplation of other men’s lives, and I feel sure you will see what warning may be derived from mine. It is, indeed, little less than a homily against a special vice that I am about to recite to you.”

Arthur gazed at the speaker in surprise as he heard these words. It seemed so impossible to him to conceive of his deeply-respected friend as capable of being under the dominion of any vice. It was with a sense of pain at his heart that he listened whilst Mr. Tollady went on.

“I was born,” he said, “at Ipswich, in 1805. It seems a long time ago, doesn’t it, Arthur? In that year Scott published his ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’; then Byron was still at Cambridge, and Shelley, a boy at Eton. Can you believe that I was nine years old when ‘Waverley’ first appeared, and that I distinctly remember the delight with which my dear father then read it? It is like looking back upon a glorious dream to think of my boyhood, spent amid such wonders, both of peace and war. I remember hearing our friends talk of Wellington’s victories in the Peninsula as matters of yesterday; it may be self-deception, but I have always been convinced that I could recollect my father’s enthusiasm at the result of Bonaparte’s Russian campaign, when I was seven; and Waterloo, with all its wild excitement at home and abroad, is yet vivid in my mind. For you, Arthur, these are all matters of history, for me they seem dear and precious remembrances of a happy time that has gone for ever.

“My father was a bookseller, and, if only he had possessed the means, would have been an excellent publisher. With him, his trade was something far more than a mere mechanical occupation, the chief end of which was to secure daily bread. Rather, he regarded it as a means for the elevation of himself and all those with whom he had business or friendship. There was not a book in his shop of which he did not possess some accurate knowledge, quite distinct from those technicalities of the trade which a bookseller usually possesses. His books were living souls in his eyes, and on me, his only child, he never ceased to impress that to damage a book was to commit a sin. ‘Books are men’s brains’ he would say, and I shall never forget a favourite quotation of his from Milton, often uttered to me when I was a child, and intended, of course, to be taken by me in the literal sense: ‘As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills Reason itself; kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.’ I had to write that passage out ten times for him on one occasion, when I had wantonly torn to pieces an old volume of ‘Don Quixote,’ which had strayed out of its proper place.

“I was sent to a day-school at Ipswich, where, I am sorry to say, that I did not learn much besides Greek and Latin; in those days they were alone thought worthy of being seriously taught; but I learned at home what a multitude of other things the world contained of vastly more interest than Virgil and Homer, and I had in after life to add to my education by pursuing such courses of reading as my tastes naturally led me to. For beyond the age of fifteen I did not remain at school. When I was so old my father died.

“He had been far too charitable and too generous to his own family to have saved much money, and one of the first things I learned after the funeral was that I should not return to a school. I cannot say that I was sorry to hear it; in those days the fervour of boyhood was added to a naturally adventurous disposition, and I felt decided pleasure in looking forward to so great a change as was involved in beginning to work for my living.

“The sale of the house and business brought my mother a little money, with the aid of which she established herself as a dressmaker, whilst I was apprenticed to a printer. When my time was out I became assistant to the same man, and thus I worked on till I reached my twenty-first year.

“Those six years were among the most miserable of my life. I detested my business, and would gladly have run away if I had had the least idea where to go or what to do. Day after day I made my poor mother wretched with my selfish complainings, whilst she was all the while working hard to keep us both in some degree of comfort. I was but a boy, and had no eyes for my mother’s sufferings.

“I think it would be impossible for any youth to be more selfish than I was during these years. I had no thought but for my own annoyances, my own wishes and plans, and many an evening did I embitter for my mother by spending it in unceasing complaints of our poverty, and descriptions of the indescribably selfish things I would do if I were once rich. All my dear father’s lessons seemed to have passed away from my mind I hate myself when I look back at these years. How heartless, how despicable I must have been!

“But at last came my twenty-first year, and with it came the news from my mother that an uncle of mine, who had died two years before, had left me a thousand pounds. I thought I should have gone mad when I heard this. A thousand pounds was for me a fortune. My visions were realised, and I was rich.

“In vain did my poor mother try to make me sensible, to advise me as to the use I ought to make of this money, to put before me, though in no selfish manner, the help it would be to her if I were to settle down in a business of my own, live with her still, and do my best to thrive. I was utterly deaf to all this. One idea alone possessed me, and that was a desire to see the world. For years this had been my ardent wish, and now I had the power of fulfilling it.

“When my mother heard this purpose she sighed and went away to her own room, doubtless to weep. I thought nothing of her grief. I do not believe that even then I was base and hard-hearted. The truth was that I did not realise my mother’s position; I knew nothing of the world, and could not deem it possible that she had serious need of my assistance, though such was indeed the case. She was too fond of me to hold out long against my determination, and so, with many promises to write frequently, and not to be away more than a few months, I set off to see foreign countries. Was there ever such a young madman?

“I was away three whole years. I saw something of most countries of Europe, of India, and of America. Everywhere I lived as cheaply as possible, and in one or two cases I worked my passage from country to country. Often do I retravel in thought over all that I saw in those three years, and, separated from the other circumstances of my life, how delightful is the memory of it to me.

“The mountains and the valleys of Switzerland became familiar to me, the grand old Italian cities, the vineyards, the blue Mediterranean, each place I came to I thought I should stop there for ever; but my eager and restless spirit drove me away. I walked through the streets of Athens, rushing thence to Constantinople, and thence again to the banks of the Ganges. I lived for a month at Benares, and can still see it as well as if I had been there yesterday; its bridge of boats across the river, its ghauts where I lounged and bathed, its numberless mosques and temples, its sacred bulls which roamed at will through the streets and bazaars, and over all that fierce Indian sun which so baked my skin that I often fancy it is still darker than that of most Europeans.

“Many other cities I wandered through, and I even saw the everlasting snow on the crests of the Himalayas. Thence I came back once more to Europe, passed over into Africa, saw the Nile. In Cairo I lived some weeks. How distinctly I can see its red-and-white minarets, its dark and narrow streets, and hear the eternal shouting of the hucksters and beggars. And the view from Mount Mokattam! There, as you looked eastward, stretched the long line of tombs, where the old caliphs sleep. To the west you saw the Nile, like a streak of silver, and, far away beyond, the distant Pyramids rising dim and ghostly out of the desert. Oh, the walks and rides at evening around this city, through the groves of fig-trees, of tamarisks, and acacias!

“After this the dream seems suddenly to change, and I find myself in Spain, rushing with an enthusiasm, that was almost frenzy, over the scenes I had learned to love years before in ‘Don Quixote.’ I was now comparatively near home, but I had not as yet been away two years, and not a thought of returning crossed my mind. I wrote occasionally to my mother, but did not expect to hear in return, so uncertain were my movements.

“The Atlantic was now before me, and I crossed it, working my passage in a French vessel from Marseilles. On arriving in the States, impatient of towns and all the evidence of civilisation, I plunged at once into the wilderness. For a long time I lived with an English family which had established itself in a spot nearly two hundred miles distant from any other settlement, and here I worked in the labour of clearing till I got weary of it. Then I visited Niagara, the vision of which still, at the distance of more than forty years, occasionally haunts my sleep; I saw the great lakes, and thence passed into Canada. But already I was growing weary of my mad restlessness.

“Very shortly I made my way back to New York, and arrived there just as my money came to an end. Now the business I had learned, and which I had formerly so much despised, stood me in good stead. For nearly half a year I worked as a printer, saving up till I should have enough money to return to England. That day at last came, and I once more crossed the Atlantic.

“I found myself again in Ipswich, after an absence of almost precisely three years. During my voyage homewards I had reflected much, and already a change was working in my inward nature; already that repentance for my folly was beginning which was to last to the end of my life.

“I reached my native town with a heart full of uneasy apprehensions. Should I find my mother in health? Should I find her well-to-do, or poor? For the first time I reflected seriously upon her position, and asked myself how she had endeavoured to live during these years of my absence. Had it been wise in me to leave her so completely alone? For she had no relative of her own, and my father’s relations all lived in other parts of England. A terrible uneasiness, the beginning of a dreadful self-reproach, seized upon me by degrees. Between my disembarkment at Liverpool and my arrival at Ipswich I neither ate nor slept; and in those days, you must remember, travelling was a very different thing from what it is now.

“I went to our old house, and saw at once that it was inhabited by strangers. I went thence to the house of my father’s most intimate friend, and I found him dead. In an agony of apprehension I hurried to the house of another acquaintance, and here at length received intelligence. It was nearly a year and a half since my mother had left Ipswich for London, hoping to earn a better living than she was able to at home. I was told her address, and, after only an hour’s pause for refreshment, started for London.

“Arthur, may you never suffer in your mind as I suffered during that journey. It is sufficient if I say that my punishment was proportionable to my fault, and that, as you have learned, was almost unpardonable.

“The address I sought was in a poor quarter in the East End, and, when I found it, appeared to be an ordinary lodging-house. A girl who came to the door knew nothing of the name I asked for, but, on my requesting that she would make further inquiry in the house, she called down the landlady. This woman remembered my mother well enough. Mrs. Tollady, she told me, had lived with her about half a year, only occasionally paying her rent, and, to all appearances, making next to nothing out of her sewing. It was now some months since she had suddenly been taken with a serious illness, had been removed to the infirmary — and there had died.”

Mr. Tollady again paused and sat long in silence, struggling with the bitter emotion which his story had awakened in himself.

Arthur knew not how to console him, and, a customer entering the shop, he was glad to withdraw from the room for a few minutes. When he returned, the printer roused himself from his depression, and smiled sadly.

“I did not think it would have cost me so much to tell you all this, Arthur,” he said. “I had thought I could speak of it aloud with as much calmness as I have grown accustomed to go over the horrible story in my own mind, for there is not a day passes without its being all acted over afresh before me. Now you know the worst, and I feel relieved. I hope the pain it has given you will be compensated by the lesson my conduct teaches.

“I shall not endeavour to describe to you my state of mind during the months, nay, the years that followed. At first I seriously believe that I was as near suicide as ever man was who did not actually yield to the temptation. I woke night after night from hideous dreams, in which the figures of my father and mother appeared to me in all kinds of situations; now on the precipices overhanging Niagara, now on the top of one of the Pyramids, now in the dreadful silence of a western prairie, always with angry faces, cursing me for my selfish cruelty.

“How often I have dreamt that I fled before these terrible images, and, as the only means of escape, leaped wildly into the chaos of a terri............