“I scarcely think it does any longer pain me. There are some things,” he added, after a pause, “which, however possible in themselves, the world agrees to make impossible in practice. My story is one of these cases. We forgot the world, or thought we were strong enough to overcome it. But”--he laughed--“it is the latter end of the nineteenth century.” Mary was not satisfied, naturally; but she only sighed, saying: “You have suffered so much, dear!” “Yes, but what else are we born for?” This evening they were to have had Gabriel with them, but the day before he had been called away to Norwich. A telegram came to him, saying that his father was dead; the old man had been killed in a couple of days by bronchitis. For the past half-year there had been communication between father and son. The bookseller was alone in his old age; a sister who had kept his house for many years was dead, and he had no near relatives to take her place. He wished to see his son, and the artist had promised to go to Norwich early in the new year. The journey had to be taken sooner. Within a week Kingcote received a note, asking him to go to his friend’s studio. Gabriel was at work as usual. There was no need for hypocritical words on one side or the other; Gabriel pointed in silence to a chair, and talked for five minutes of an artist whose works were then on exhibition at Burlington House. Then: “My father seems to have left no will. But his affairs are in order, and I shall be a good deal better off than I was. In fact, the business has been profitable. No doubt his successor will continue to find it so.” “Who succeeds him?” “I don’t know.” He mixed colours on his pallet. “The shop, and the house above it, were his freehold property; they belong, of course, to me. There is a good deal of stock, and there is an assistant who has been in the shop nine years. The immediate capital required to carry on the business will be next to nothing.” Kingcote was silent, and moved uneasily on his chair. The artist worked for a few minutes, then, turning suddenly round: “Well, what do you say?” “You surely don’t mean----?” “Certainly not, if it disagrees with you. Let us talk of something else.” Kingcote’s face was gloomy, but at length he broke into a laugh. “The idea is amazing!” he exclaimed. “And it really occurred to you that I should be capable of conducting a business?” “Yes, it occurred to me,” admitted Gabriel, in his unsmiling way. “There are many more disagreeable ways of getting a living. I went so far as to think that the chance savoured of the providential.” “But, my good friend, supposing for a moment that I were at all fitted for such things”--the touch of depreciation was involuntary--“how would it be possible for me to take over your father’s business? What securities can I give you? What----” Gabriel checked him with a peculiar look, very nearly a smile. “You are giving yourself a testimonial. I scarcely credited you with such business faculty.”