‘I have a granddaughter who will be penniless if she offends me,’ said the old man, with the same gloomy look which had darkened his face when he spoke of his son. ‘I do not care for any strange influence to come between us. As it is, we are happy—not loving each other in any silly romantic fashion, but living together in mutual endurance. No; I should be a fool to admit any disturbing element.’ ‘Be it so,’ said Lucius. ‘I am a struggling man, and have hardly trodden the first stage of an uphill journey. The friendship I offer is not worth much.’ ‘I should refuse it in exactly the same manner if you were a millionnaire,’ answered the other, opening the heavy old door, and admitting the fog. He led the way across the forecourt, unlocked the tall iron gate, and his visitor passed out into the sordid realities of the Shadrack-road. ‘Once more, good-night,’ said Mr. Sivewright. ‘Good-night,’ answered Lucius, as the gate closed upon him, with a creak like the caw of an evil-minded raven. He turned his face homeward, intensely mortified. He was a proud man, and had offered his friendship to a retired bric-à-brac dealer, only to have it flatly rejected. But it was not wounded pride which vexed him as he walked home through the fog. ‘There’s no such thing as love at first sight,’ he said to himself; ‘yet when a man has lived for half-a-dozen years without seeing a pretty face in his own rank of life, his heart is apt to be rather inflammable.’ CHAPTER III. HARD HIT. Lucius Davoren found himself curiously disturbed by the memory of that pretty face in his own rank of life—that glimpse of a fireside different from the common firesides of the Shadrack-Basin district—the fat and prosperous hearths, where the atmosphere was odorous with tea, shrimps, muffins, and gin-and-water; the barren hearth-stoves by which destitution hugged itself in its rags. He went about his daily work with his accustomed earnestness, was no whit the less tender to the little children, watched with the same anxious care by pauper sick beds, handled shattered limbs or loathsome sores with the same gentle touch; in a word, did his duty thoroughly, in this dismal, initiative stage of his career. But he never passed Cedar House without a regretful sigh and a lingering gaze at its blank upper windows; which, showing no trace of the life within, had a wall-eyed look that was worse than the utter blindness of closed shutters. He sometimes went out of his way even, for the sake of passing those inexorable walls. He wasted a few minutes of his busy day loitering by the iron gate, hoping that by some kindly caprice of Fortune the pale sweet face of Lucille Sivewright would appear behind the rusty bars, the ponderous hinge would creak, and the girl who haunted his thoughts would emerge from her gloomy prison.