“Thank you,” said Roy. “Very possibly he may have gone back to Norway by the Continent.” And with a feeling of vague disappointment he turned away. CHAPTER X. When Roy Boniface had gone Frithiof sat for a long time without stirring. He had longed to be alone, and yet the moment he had got his wish the most crushing sense of desolation overwhelmed him. He, too, was keenly conscious of that change in his own nature which had been quite apparent to Roy. It seemed to him that everything had been taken from him in one blow—love, hope, his father, his home, his stainless name, his occupation, his fortune, and even his old self. It was an entirely different character with which he now had to reckon, and an entirely new life which he had to live. Both character and surroundings had been suddenly changed very much for the worse. He had got to put up with them, and somehow to endure life. That was the only thing clear to him. The little child by the Serpentine had given him so much standing-ground, but he had not an inch more at present; all around him was a miserable, cheerless, gray mist. Presently, becoming aware that the cold wind from the river was no longer reviving him but chilling him to the bone, he roused himself to close the window. Mechanically he drew down the blind, struck a light, and noticing that on the disordered bed there lay the crumpled pink paper which had brought him the bad news, he picked it up, smoothed it out, and read it once more. There was still something which he had not seen in the first horrible shock of realizing his father’s death. With darkening brow he read the words which Herr Grönvold had weighed so carefully and counted so often. “I will provide for your sisters till you can. Impossible for you to return in time for funeral. My advice is try for work in London. No opening here for you, as feeling will be strong against family.” It was only then that he actually took in the fact that he was penniless—indeed, far worse than penniless—weighed down by a load of debts which, if not legally his, were his burden none the less. There were, as he well knew, many who failed with a light heart, who were bankrupt one week and starting afresh with perfect unconcern the next, but he was too much his father’s son to take the disaster that way. The disgrace and the perception of being to blame which had killed Herr Falck now fell upon him with crushing force; he paced the room like one distracted, always with the picture before him of what was now going on in Bergen, always with the thought of the suffering and misery which would result from the failure of a firm so old and so much respected as his father’s.