Roland Yorke had stuck to his copying. During this autumn, now rapidly passing, when all the world and his wife were off on the wing, spending their money, and taking out their fling at pleasure--which Roland thought uncommonly hard on him--he had really put his shoulder to the wheel and drudged on at his evening work. The office had him by day, the folios by night. And if he hindered an evening or two a week by dropping in upon Mr. Greatorex and somebody else who was in Mr. Greatorex\'s house, he sat up at his work when he got home. Truly Roland had learnt a lesson at Port Natal, for this was very different from what he would have done in the old days at Helstonleigh. It could not be said that he was gaining a fortune. The writing came to grief sometimes; Roland was as fond of talking as ever, by way of recreative accompaniment to labour, and the result would be that words were left out in places and wrong ones penned in others: upon which fresh paper had to be got, and the sheet begun again. Therefore he was advancing rather more surely than swiftly: his present earnings amounted in the aggregate to two sovereigns! And these he deposited for safety in Mrs. Jones\'s hands.

But Roland is not writing this October evening: which, all things considered, was destined to turn out rather a notable one. A remark was made in a former chapter, that Roland, from the state of ecstatic delight he was thrown into by the news that Arthur Channing was about to visit London, did not quite know whether he stood on his head or his heels. Most assuredly that same remark might be applied to him this evening. Upon dashing into his room, a little before six o\'clock, Roland found on his tea-table a letter awaiting him that had come by the day-mail from Helstonleigh. Recognizing Arthur\'s handwriting, he tore it open, read the few lines it contained, and burst forth into a shout so boisterous and prolonged, that the Reverend Mr. Ollivera, quietly reading in the drawing-room above, leaped off his seat with consternation, fully believing that somebody was on fire.

Arthur Channing was coming to London! Then. That same evening. Almost at that very hour he ought to be arriving at Euston Square Station. Roland did not give himself leisure to digest the why and the wherefore of the journey, or to speculate upon why the station should be Euston Square and not Paddington. Arthur was coming, and that was sufficient for him.

Neglecting his tea, brushing himself up, startling Mrs. Jones with the suddenness of the tidings, which he burst into her room to deliver, Roland set off for the Euston Square terminus. As usual, he had not a fraction of money. That was no impediment to his arriving in time: and the extraordinary manner in which he pushed his way along the streets, striding over or through all impediments, caused a crowd of ragamuffins to collect and follow him on the run, believing that, like Johnny Gilpin, he was doing it for a wager.

Charles, the youngest of the Channing family, was coming home overland, via Marseilles, from India, where he had an excellent appointment. He had gone to it at eighteen, two years ago, and been very well until recently. All at once his health failed, and he was ordered home for a six months\' sojourn. It was to meet him in London, where he might be expected in a day or two, and take him down to Helstonleigh, that Arthur Channing was now coming.

Panting and breathless with haste, looking wild with excitement, Roland went striding on to the platform just as the train came steadily in. It was a mercy he did not get killed. Catching sight of the well-remembered face--though it was aged and altered now, for the former stripling of nineteen had grown into the fine man of seven-and-twenty--Roland sprang forward and held on to the carriage. Porters shouted, guards flew, passengers screamed--it was all one to him.

They stood together on the platform, hand locked in hand: but that French customs do not prevail with us, Roland might have hugged Arthur\'s life out. The tears were in his eyes with the genuineness of his emotion. Roland\'s love for his early friend, who had once suffered so much for his sake, was no simulated one. The spectators spared a minute to turn and gaze on them--the two notable young men. Arthur was nearly as tall as Roland, very noble and distinguished. His face had not the singular beauty--as beauty--of Hamish\'s, but it was good, calm, handsome: one of those that thoughtful men like to look upon. His grey eyes were dark and deep, his hair auburn.

"Arthur, old friend, I could die of joy. If you only knew how often I have dreamt of this!"

Arthur laughed, pressed his hand warmly, and more warmly, ere he released it. "I must see after my luggage at once, Roland. I think I have lost it."

"Lost your luggage?"

"Yes; in so far as that it has not come with me. This," showing a rather high basket, whose top was a mound of tissue-paper, that he brought out of the carriage with his umbrella and a small parcel, "is something Lady Augusta asked me to convey to Gerald."

"What is it?"

"Grapes, I fancy. She charged me not to let it be crushed. I sent my portmanteau on to the station by Galloway\'s man, and when I arrived there myself could not see him anywhere. When we reached Birmingham it was not to be found, and I telegraphed to Helstonleigh. The guard said if it came to Birmingham in time he would put it in the van. I only got to the station as the train was starting, and had no time to look."

"But what took you round by Birmingham?"

"Business for Galloway. I had three or four hours\' work to do for him there."

"Bother Galloway! How are the two mothers?" continued Roland, as they walked arm-in-arm down the platform. "How\'s everybody?"

"Yours is very well; mine is not. She has never seemed quite the thing since my father\'s death, Roland. Everybody else is well; and I have no end of messages for you."

They stood round the luggage-van until it was emptied. Nothing had been turned out belonging to Arthur Channing. It was as he feared--the portmanteau was not there.

"They will be sure to send it on from Birmingham by the next train," he remarked. "I shall get it in the morning."

"Where was the good of your coming by this duffing train?" cried Roland. "It\'s as slow as an old cart-horse. I should have taken the express."

"I could not get away before this one, Roland. Galloway made a point of my doing all there was to do."

"The cantankerous, exacting old beauty! Are his curls flourishing?"

Arthur smiled. "Channing still, but growing a little thin."

"And you are getting on well, Arthur?

"Very. My salary is handsome; and I believe the business, or part of it, will be mine some day. We had better take a cab, Roland. I\'ll get rid of Gerald\'s parcel first. This small one is for Hamish. Stay a moment, though."

He wrote down the name of a private hotel in the Strand, where he intended to stay, requesting that the portmanteau should be sent there on its arrival.

Jumping into a hansom, Roland, who had not recovered his head, gave the address of Gerald\'s chambers. As they were beginning to spin along the lighted streets, however, he impulsively arrested the man, without warning to Arthur, and substituted Mrs. Gerald Yorke\'s lodgings. They were close at hand; but that was not his motive.

"If we leave the grapes at the chambers, Ger will only entertain his cronies with them--a lot of fast men like himself," explained Roland. "By taking them to Winny\'s, those poor meek little mites may stand a chance of getting a few. I don\'t believe they\'d ever taste anything good at all but for Mrs. Hamish Channing."

Arthur Channing did not understand. Roland enlightened him. Gerald kept up, as might be said, two establishments: chambers for himself and lodgings for his wife.

"But that must be expensive," observed Arthur.

"Of course it is. Ger goes in for expense and fashion. All well and good if he can do it--and keep it up. I think he has had a windfall from some quarter, for he is launching out uncommonly just now. It can\'t be from work; he has been taking his ease all the autumn in Tom Fuller\'s yacht."

"I don\'t quite understand, yet, Roland. Do you mean that Gerald does not live with his wife and children?"

"He lives with them after a fashion: gives them one-third of his days and nights, and gives his chambers the other two. You\'d hardly recognize him now, he is so grand and stilted up. He\'d not nod to me in the street."

"Roland!"

"It\'s true. He\'s as heartless as an owl; Ger always was, you know."

"But you are his brother."

"Brothers and sisters don\'t count for much with Gerald. Besides, I\'m down in the world, and he\'d not take a pitch-fork to lift me up in it again. Would you believe it, Arthur, he likes nothing better than to fling in my teeth that miserable old affair at Galloway\'s--the banknote. The very last time we ever met--I had run into Winny\'s lodgings to take some dolls\' clothes for Kitty from little Nelly Channing--Ger taunted me with that back affair, and more than hinted, not for the first time, that I\'d helped myself to some money lost last summer by Bede Greatorex. If I\'d known Ger was at home, I\'d never have gone: Miss Nelly might have done her errand herself. Have you read his book?"

"Ye-es, I have," answered Arthur, in a rather dubious tone. "Have you?"

"No; for I couldn\'t," candidly avowed Roland. "I got nearly through one volume, and it was a task. It was impossible to make head or tail of it. I know I\'m different from other folks, have not half the gumption in me I ought to have, and don\'t judge of things as they do, which is all through having gone to Port Natal; but I thought the book a rubbishing book, Arthur, and a bad one into the bargain: Where\'s the use of writing a book if people can\'t read it?"

"Did you read the reviews on it?"

"Oh law! I\'ve heard enough about them. Had they been peacock\'s feathers, Ger would have stuck them in his cap. And he pretty nigh did. I\'ll tell you what book I read--and cried over it too--and got up from it feeling better and happier--and that\'s Hamish\'s."

A light, like a glow of gladness, shone in Arthur Channing\'s honest grey eyes. "When I read that book, I felt thankful that a man should have been found to write such," he said in a hushed tone. "I should have felt just the same if he had been a stranger."

"Ay, indeed: it was something of that I meant to say. And I wish all the world could read it!" added impulsive Roland. "And did you read the reviews on it?"

"Oh my goodness," cried Roland, a blank look taking the place of his enthusiasm. "Arthur, do you know, if those horrible reviews come across my mind when I am up at Hamish\'s, my face goes hot with shame. I\'ve never said a syllable about them on my own score; I shouldn\'t like to. When I get rich, I mean to go against the papers for injustice."

"We cannot understand it down with us," said Arthur. "On the Saturday night that William Yorke got back to Helstonleigh after attending your uncle\'s funeral, I met him at the station. He had the \'Snarler\' with him--and told me before he\'d let me open it, that it contained a most disgraceful attack on Hamish\'s book: in fact, on Hamish himself. Putting aside all other feeling when I read it, my astonishment was excessive."

Roland relieved his feelings by a few stamps, and it was well that the cab bottom was pretty strong. "If I could find out who the writer was, Arthur, I\'d get him ducked."

"That review was followed by others, all in the same strain, just as bad as it is possible for reviews to be made."

"The wicked old reptiles!" interjected Roland.

"What struck me as being rather singular in the matter, was this," observed Arthur: "That the selfsame journals which so extravagantly and wrongly praised Gerald\'s work, just as extravagantly and wrongly abused Hamish\'s. It would seem to me that there must have been some plot afoot, to write up Gerald and write down Hamish. But how the public can submit to be misled by review............