CHAPTER VII

BETWEEN OLD AND NEW




Julian Casti's uncle had been three years dead. It was well for him
that he lived no longer; his business had continued to dwindle, and
the last months of the poor man's life were embittered by the
prospect of inevitable bankruptcy. He died of an overdose of some
opiate, which the anguish of sleeplessness brought him into the
habit of taking. Suicide it might have been, yet that was scarcely
probable; he was too anxious on his daughter's account to abandon
her in this way, for certainly his death could be nothing to her
profit. Julian was then already eighteen, and quickly succeeded in
getting a situation. Harriet Smales left London, and went to live
with her sole relative, except Julian, an aunt who kept a
stationer's shop in Colchester. She was taught the business, and
assisted her aunt for more than two years, when, growing tired of
the life of a country town, she returned to London, and succeeded in
getting a place at a stationer's in Gray's Inn Road. This was six
months ago. Having thus established herself, she wrote to Julian,
and told him where she was.

Julian never forgot the promise he had made to his uncle that
Christmas night, eight years ago, when he was a lad of thirteen.
Harriet he had always regarded as his sister, and never yet had he