He sat down smiling, as if there was a pleasant fragrance in the very thought of the fair young girl that refreshed him, and sent him into a dreamy state full of visions of youth and innocence. "I don't blame him," he said, after a pause. "I should do the same if I were his age. Yes," he said firmly, and as if to crush down some offered opposition, "even if she be a convict's daughter. It is not her fault. We do not mark out our own paths." Again, another night, and Sir Gordon arrested himself several times over in the act of spoiling his carefully-trimmed nails by nibbling them--a somewhat painful operation--with his false teeth. "It's time I died; I honestly believe it's time I died," he said testily. "When a man has grown to an age in which he spends his days suspecting the motives of his fellow-creatures--hah! of his best friends--it's time he died, for every year he lives makes him worse-- gives him more to answer for." "Poor Bayle!" he continued, shaking hands with himself, "he looks upon each of those two women as something holy." "No," he mused, "that does not express it; there's something too fatherly, too brotherly. No, that's not it. Too friendly; I suppose that's it; but friendship seems such a weak, pitiful word to express his feelings towards them." "Christie Bayle, my dear friend," he said aloud, as he rose and gazed straight before him, "I ask your pardon; and--heaven helping me--I'll never suspect you again." The old man seemed to feel better after this; and throwing himself into an easy-chair, he smiled and looked wrinkled--as he had a way of looking in his dressing-room--and happy. At first Sir Gordon had gone to the little house at Clerkenwell feeling out of his element, and with an uncomfortable sensation upon him that the neighbours--poor souls who were too much occupied with the solution of the problem of how to get a sufficiency of bread and meat to preserve life--were watching him. After a second and third visit, this uneasiness wore off, and he found himself walking proudly up to the house, smiling at Thisbe, who only gave him a hard look in return, consequent upon his remark concerning Tom Porter. Sometimes Christie Bayle would be there. As often not. But the chair was always ready for him, and Julia took his hat and stick. It was generally after his dinner at the club that he found his way up there; and on these occasions Thisbe asked no questions. The moment she had closed the door and shown the visitor into the little parlour, she went downstairs and put on the kettle. As a rule, precisely at nine, Thisbe took up the supper-tray with its simple contents; but on these evenings the supper-tray gave place to the tea-tray, and Sir Gordon sat for quite an hour sipping his tea and talking, Julia crossing now and then to fetch his cup.