good hope of the port, rowing and steering, however toilsome, is a
cheerful thing; but when the track is so far lost that the sailor
scarcely hopes to regain it--then perhaps (God only knows) it requires
more virtue to row and steer at all, even though it be done fitfully.

This belief that he could never come to any desired haven was the one
force above all others that went to the ruining of Toyner's life.




CHAPTER III.


Bart Toyner was more than thirty years old when the period of his
reformation came. His father had grown old and foolish. It was the
breaking down of his father's clear mind that first started and shocked
Bart into some strong emotion of filial respect and love; then came
another agonising struggle on his part to free himself from his evil
habits. In this fit of sobriety he went a journey to the nearest city
upon his father's business, and there, after a few days, he took to
drinking harder than ever, ceased to write home, lost all the
possessions that he had taken with him, and sank deep down into the mire
of the place.

The first thing that he remembered in the awakening that followed was
the face of another man. It stood out in the nebulous gathering of his
returning self-consciousness like the face of an angel; there was the
flame of enthusiasm in the eyes, a force of will had chiselled handsome
features into tense lines; but in spite of that, or rather perhaps