May was driving home one afternoon towards the end of June with a sense of great well-being. The baby was thriving as heartily as the fondest mother could wish, and Tom was as lovable as ever. He had got rather tired of going out to dine or dance, and of late had more frequently spent his evenings alone with May. Two days before he saw her opening a note which obviously was an invitation, and before she had read it he said—

“May, if that is for dinner any time in the next week, I am engaged to dine with you at home.”

His guess had been correct, and they were going to spend this evening alone at home. There were always certain pieces of ritual connected with baby cult to be gone through, and though Tom expressed impatience sometimes at the length of the services, he knew that the sight of May bending over their first-born was a very pretty one, and often wished he were a painter as well as a sculptor. Demeter had passed through the hands of the pointers, and Tom was at work again on her, for he meant to finish her himself. Day after day he spent, chisel in hand, working down the whole surface, till he “found{286}” the statue. Various people, remembering the two statuettes which Tom had exhibited eighteen months ago, wanted to know if there were any more to be had, for the two had sold at once for high prices, though Tom had, after his conversion, expressed an unmercenary intention of throwing the cheques into the fire. But when they asked whether he was working at anything, and were shown the Demeter, they became thoughtful and said, “Good morning.”

Altogether May was more than satisfied, and she went quickly up the steps and into the house, thinking how terrible it was that she had not set eyes on Tom or the baby since half-past eleven that morning. There was a note for her on the hall table, and she saw with a sudden spasm of anxiety that it was from her husband. She tore it open quickly, and read—

“Father’s business has failed. He heard this morning, and he has had a stroke. I have gone down there at once. You had better follow me.”

May read the note through twice before she thoroughly grasped its meaning. She waited only one moment to steady herself, and then went quickly upstairs to give orders for a small trunk to be packed for her, and to say good-bye to the baby.

Tom had received the news just after lunch, and was quite unable to remember where May had gone. She had come in to tell him that she would not be in till six, and that she was lunching somewhere, and then going somewhere else, but Tom was finishing a vein on the back of Demeter’s drooping hand, and had only said, “Yes, dear, yes,” without looking up. May felt one moment of slight pique, and had{287} not repeated her message, saying to herself that if he did not care to know she did not care to tell him.

He had arrived at Applethorpe two hours afterwards, and there learned that there was probably no hope. His father was lying quite unconscious. They thought perhaps he might rally for a few minutes before the end, and so Tom sat and waited. The sun moved slowly round to the west, and it was not till the golden light had begun to be tinged with red that his father moved. He opened his eyes, saw Tom sitting by him, and snapped his fingers in the face of the King of Terrors.

“I’m stone broke, Tom,” he said, “and it’s lucky for you that you learned to break stones.”

And with a jest on his lips he went out without hope or fear into the Valley of the Shadow.

The suddenness of what had happened for a time stunned and obliterated thought in Tom’s mind. Though his father was old, no blurring decay had touched him with forewarning hand, and it was in a half-dream that Tom went down from the death chamber into the library. The telegram which announced the failure had fluttered down on to the floor, and the warm garden-scented breeze which streamed in through the open window stirred it every now and then as if it was twitched by some unseen hand. The book his father had been reading was still standing open on the desk of his reading-chair, where he had been sitting when the news came.

Everything was pitilessly unchanged. The servants had come in to draw down the blinds, but{288} Tom stopped them. What was the use of that unmeaning decorum? Tom had been very fond of his father, but the thought of May and the baby could not but make a picture in his mind. His father, like many very rich men, seldom or never spoke of his money, and Tom wondered vaguely, but with growing anxiety, how complete the smash was. The delights of poverty, of being out at elbows, and working passionately for a living at the work he loved, presented themselves in rather different colours to a man with a wife and infant son, from the glowing difficulties he had painted for himself as an ardent bachelor of twenty-two. What if the worst he feared were true—if they were absolute paupers!

His thoughts went back again to his father lying dead upstairs. Tom remembered so vividly the last time he had seen him, standing with May and the baby in the porch when he went up to London. He had taken an extraordinary interest in the baby, and used to hazard cynical speculations as to its future. He used to allude to it as Mr. Thomas, in order to differentiate it from Tom. “Mr. Thomas’s solemnity is overpowering,” he said once; “he makes me feel as if I was a small boy talking to a wise old gentleman, or a juvenile offender waiting for an awful judge to pronounce sentence on me. And he makes me realize what is meant by rich silences.” Mr. Thomas at the moment broke into his own rich silence by a very creditable howl, and his grandfather added, “And mark how opulently he cries.”

Tom met May at the door, and they went together up to the room where his father lay. He did not tell{289} her what the old man’s last words had been. They found Mr. Markham waiting for them below when they came down, and the three talked together till it grew late. He stopped to dinner, and afterwards, when May had gone to bed, Tom mentioned the subject of the smash.

Mr. Markham shook his head gravely.

“Do either the London house or Applethorpe belong to you?” he asked.

“No, we rent them both.”

“My poor boy! I am sure I am right in telling you to prepare for the worst. I remember from a talk I had with your father once, that the greater part of his money was in this business, and the rest in two Australian banks which broke last year.”

Tom stood up and frowned.

“He never told me that. He never spoke about money, you know. I had not an idea of it.”

“He probably thought it was unnecessary, for I believe he had the most utter confidence in his partners. I have seen the evening papers, and it appears that there has never been so complete a smash, except perhaps the Argentines.”

“Have you got the paper?” asked Tom.

“Not with me. But don’t look at the papers about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are some very unjust things said about your father. Of course we all know quite well that he had nothing to do with the management of the company.”

“What an infernal slander!” said Tom, hotly.{290} “And do you mean you think I have nothing—literally nothing?”

“It is possible it may mean that.”

“What is to happen to the bills I haven’t paid?” demanded Tom.

“You have a profession,” said Mr. Markham. “Ted told me Wallingthorpe’s opinion of your work.”

“Ah, those horrors!” said Tom, impatiently. “I shall not earn a penny by those.”

“But you say you have unpaid bills?”

“Yes, I suppose I have—every one has. Of course they must be paid. The furniture here belongs to us.”

“That is your father’s. Have you nothing except your income from him?”

“I have ￡1500 left me by my godmother, and May has ￡500, has she not? Eighty pounds a year between us—a ridiculously insignificant sum. But I have my profession, as you say. I shall work for my living, work for her and the baby. ............