Mr. Sivewright’s condition had in no wise improved. That gradual decay had gone on a long time before the sturdy old man had cared to make his pains and languors known to any human being, much less to a member of that fraternity he affected to despise—the medical profession. All Lucius Davoren’s care failed to bring back the vigour that had been wasted. He kept the feeble lamp of life burning, somewhat faintly, and that was all he could do yet awhile. For some little time after the surgeon’s admission to the house, Mr. Sivewright spent his evenings by the fireside in the parlour down-stairs. At Lucius’s earnest request he had consented to the purchase of a more luxurious chair than the straight-backed instrument of torture in which he had been accustomed to sit. Here by the hearth, where a better fire burned than of old—for Lucius insisted that mistaken economy meant death—the bric-à-brac dealer sat and talked; talked of his youth, his bargains, his petty triumph over rival traders, but of that lost wanderer, his son, never. ‘There must be something hard in a man’s nature when even the approach of death does not soften his heart towards his own flesh and blood,’ thought Lucius. There came a time when the old man felt himself altogether too weak to leave his room. The broad shallow steps of the solid old staircase—so easy to the tread of youth and strength—became for him too painful a journey. He only left his bed to sit by the little bit of fire in his own room, or on warmer days by the open window. This was some time after Lucius Davoren’s visit to Stillmington, when spring had been succeeded by summer, which in the Shadrack-road district was distinguishable from the other seasons chiefly by an Egyptian plague of flies and an all-pervading atmosphere of dust; also by the shrill cries of costermongers vending cheap lots of gooseberries or periwinkles, and by an adoption of somewhat oriental or _al-fresco_ habits among the population, who lounged at their doors, and stood about the streets a good deal in the long warm evenings, while respectable matrons did their domestic needlework seated on their doorsteps, whence they might watch their young barbarians at play in the adjacent gutter.