With the receipt of this letter it was as if one stage of a journey had come to an end. The door of a former life of luxury and careless ease had been closed and barred, and before them all lay a rugged path to be travelled, and moreover the light that shone upon it was so vague and uncertain that it was difficult to follow in its windings. [Illustration] STAGE II. CHAPTER I. WHAT MR. NETLEY SAID. A LONG, dree journey by that very unsavoury route to and from the Continent—Rotterdam and Harwich—and Jerome Wellfield, on the morning after his parting from his sister and sweetheart, found himself in London. He had nothing to do there—no business in the great city—no means, no right to take any pleasure in the same. He made his way from the Liverpool Street Station to that at Euston Square, where he found he had some two hours to wait before the express to Irkford should start. Who does not know the dreariness of such hours of waiting, weary, travel-worn and alone, in some great wilderness of a city station? They were the two most dismal hours he had ever passed. At last, at eleven in the forenoon, the train to Manchester started. Jerome cast himself into a second-class compartment, and with weary eyes saw, when he was not half-dozing, ‘the happy autumn fields’ through which the express rushed smoothly and swiftly, and with slackened speed at last rolled into that cheering and inspiriting terminus, the London Road Station, Manchester. From Ems—even from Elberthal—to Manchester! The contrast just flashed across his mind as he alighted. A clerk presently accosted him inquiringly, ‘Mr. Wellfield?’ and then gave him a note which he carried. The note was a kindly, pleasant one from Mr. Netley, begging him to go to his house, and make it his headquarters until his business in Manchester was settled. Business prevented him from coming to the station himself and taking his guest home, but he would be in to dinner at seven. The address was given, and he hoped his clerk would bring word that Mr. Wellfield was on his way to ‘Birch Lodge.’ With the sensation that this was true friendliness, Jerome bade the youth tell Mr. Netley that he accepted his invitation with many thanks, and, getting into a cab, gave the address, and was driven to Mr. Netley’s house—his ‘box,’ as he called it in his note.