All this he thought over as he walked along the Strand one morning to his office. He was going to see his chief, who had sent for him on a matter of business. His chief was Mr. Fisher, an excellent editor, though not quite enough of a partisan perhaps to have a strong following. _The Centre_ was a model of fairness, and the mainstay of that great section of the reading public that likes its news trustworthy and copious, but has no pronounced party leanings. Still, if it was a paper without political influence, it was one of great political use, for it invariably stated a question from all points of view with equal fairness, though it leant, if at all, from sheer editorial generosity, towards making the best of it for the weakest side. Thus a minority looked to it almost as to an advocate, and the majority knew that any strength that was against them would be set forth in _The Centre_, and that if none was pleaded there, the right and the triumph were together. Mr. Fisher liked Walter Hibbert; and though by tacit agreement their relations inside the office were purely formal, outside they were a good deal more intimate. Occasionally they took the form of a quiet dinner, or a few hours in the little house near Portland Road; for Florence was rather a favourite of the editors—perhaps, for one reason, because she was obviously of opinion that he ought to be married. A man generally likes a woman who pays him this compliment, especially when it is disinterested. Mr. Fisher was a widower and childless. There was some story connected with his marriage, but the Hibberts never heard the rights of it, and it was evidently a painful subject to him. All that was known in the office was that years before a gaunt-looking woman used to sometimes come for him, and that they always walked silently away together. Some one said once that he had married her because he had known her for years, and she was poor and he did not know how to provide for her except by marrying her, and that she was querulous and worried him a good deal. After a time she grew thin and feeble-looking. One day, about three years after the marriage, her death appeared in the paper; her husband looked almost relieved, but very sad, and no one ventured to ask him any questions.