from lime-kilns, wafted in long trails; reek of solid blackness from
pits and forges, voluming aloft and far-floated by the sluggish
wind.

Born at Birmingham, the son of a teacher of drawing, Maurice
Hilliard had spent most of his life in the Midland capital; to its
grammar school he owed an education just sufficiently prolonged to
unfit him for the tasks of an underling, yet not thorough enough to
qualify him for professional life. In boyhood he aspired to the
career of an artist, but his father, himself the wreck of a would-be
painter, rudely discouraged this ambition; by way of compromise
between the money-earning craft and the beggarly art, he became a
mechanical-draughtsman. Of late years he had developed a strong
taste for the study of architecture; much of his leisure was given
to this subject, and what money he could spare went in the purchase
of books and prints which helped him to extend his architectural
knowledge. In moods of hope, he had asked himself whether it might
not be possible to escape from bondage to the gods of iron, and earn
a living in an architect's office. That desire was now forgotten in
his passionate resolve to enjoy liberty without regard for the
future.

All his possessions, save the articles of clothing which he would
carry with him, were packed in a couple of trunks, to be sent on the
morrow to Birmingham, where they would lie in the care of his friend
Narramore. Kinsfolk he had none whom he cared to remember, except
his sister; she lived at Wolverhampton, a wife and mother, in narrow
but not oppressive circumstances, and Hilliard had taken leave of
her in a short visit some days ago. He would not wait for the
wedding of his sister-in-law enough that she was provided for, and