He was weary after the morning’s absence from home, and fell into a light slumber. Dreams troubled him. First he found himself in Australia; he heard again the sudden news of his son’s death; the shock awoke him. Another dozing fit, and he was a young man with a wife and children to support; haunted with the fear of coming to want; harsh, unreasonable in his exactions at home. Something like a large black coffin came into his dream, and in dread of it he again returned to consciousness. All night he had been thinking of the dark story of long ago—his wife’s form motionless on the bed—the bottle which told him what had happened. Why must that memory revive to trouble his last days? Part of his zeal for the great project had come of a feeling that he might thus in some degree repair his former ill-doing; Jane would be a providence to many hapless women whose burden was as heavy as his own wife’s had been. Must he abandon that solace? In any case he could bestow his money for charitable purposes, but it would not be the same, it would not effect what he had aimed at. Late in the afternoon he drew from the inner pocket of his coat a long envelope and took thence a folded paper. It was covered with clerkly writing, which he perused several times. At length he tore the paper slowly across the middle, again tore the fragments, and threw them on to the fire. . . . Jane obeyed her grandfather’s word and went out for an hour. She wished for news of Pennyloaf, who had been ill, and was now very near the time of her confinement. At the door of the house in Merlin Place she was surprised to encounter Bob Hewett, who stood in a lounging attitude; he had never appeared to her so disreputable—not that his clothes were worse than usual, but his face and hands were dirty, and the former was set in a hang-dog look. ‘Is your wife upstairs, Mr. Hewett?’ Jane asked, when he had nodded sullenly in reply to her greeting. ‘Yes; and somebody else too as could have been dispensed with. There’s another mouth to feed.’ ‘No, there ain’t,’ cried a woman’s voice just behind him. Jane recognised the speaker, a Mrs. Griffin, who lived in the house and was neighbourly to Pennyloaf. ‘There ain’t?’ inquired Bob, gruffly. ‘The child’s dead.’ ‘Thank goodness for that, any way!’ Mrs. Griffin explained to Jane that the birth had taken place twelve hours ago. Pennyloaf was ‘very low,’ but not in a state to cause anxiety; perhaps it would be better for Jane to wait until to-morrow before seeing her. ‘She didn’t say “thank goodness,” added the woman, with a scornful glance at Bob, ‘but I don’t think she’s over sorry as it’s gone, an’ small blame to her. There’s some people as doesn’t care much what sort o’ times she has—not meanin’ _you_, Miss, but them as had _ought_ to care.’