"I offered you and your wife a home."

"Yes, but on conditions that were impossible to me. I had some pride in
those days. My education had not fitted me to stand behind a counter and
drive hard bargains with dealers of doubtful honesty. Nor could I bring
my wife to such a home as this."

"The time came when you left that poor creature without any home," said
the old man sternly.

"Necessity has no law, my dear father. You may imagine that my life,
without a profession and without any reliable resources, has been rather
precarious. When I seemed to have acted worst, I have been only the slave
of circumstances."

"Indeed! and have you no pity for the fate of your wife, no interest in
the life of your only child?"

"My wife was a poor helpless creature, who contrived to make my life
wretched," Mr. Nowell, alias Percival, answered coolly. "I gave her every
sixpence I possessed when I sent her home to England; but luck went dead
against me for a long time after that, and I could neither send her money
nor go to her. When I heard of her death, I heard in an indirect way that
my child had been adopted by some old fool of a half-pay officer; and I
was naturally glad of an accident which relieved me of a heavy incubus.
An opportunity occurred about the same time of my entering on a tolerably
remunerative career as agent for some Belgian ironworks in America; and I
had no option but to close with the offer at once or lose the chance
altogether. I sailed for New York within a fortnight after poor Lucy's
death, and have lived in America for the last fifteen years. I have