"Do he, now? And what does Miss Rich say?"

"Oh, she only talks to him about its being fine or rainy, and as if she didn't want to stop in the room."

"Then she is," said Elizabeth triumphantly.

"Is? Is what?"

"Going to marry him. That's the proper way to a lady to behave."

"Oh!" said Bob shortly, and a curious frown came over his countenance.

"I don't like him, somehow. I wish one didn't want money quite so bad."

Bob went up-stairs, and the place being empty he shut himself up in the surgery, to indulge in a morbid taste for trying flavour or odour of everything in the place, and fortunately so far without fatal or even dangerous results.

After a time he had a fit, and prescribed for himself _Syrup Aurantii_-- so much in cold water, leaving himself in imagination in the chair while he mixed the medicine, and going back to the chair to take it. After recovering from his imaginary fit, he spelled over a number of the _Lancet_, dwelling long over in account of an operation of a novel kind; and ending by standing upon a chair and carefully noting the contents of the doctor's glass jars of preparations, which he turned round and round till he was tired, and came down, to finish the morning by helping himself to about a teaspoonful of chlorate of potassium, which he placed in his trousers-pocket, not from any intention of taking it to purify his blood, but to drop in pinches in the kitchen fire and startle Elizabeth.

"Teach her not to say things agen my old woman," said Bob. "Just as if she can help being old!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

A SISTER'S TRIAL.

"Don't ask questions. There's the money; take it. You don't think I stole it, do you?"

"Stole it, Hendon dear? No, of course. How can you talk so?"

"Then, why don't you take it?"

"Because, as your sister, I think I have a right to know whence it comes."

"And, as your brother, seeing how we live here, in everybody's debt, I don't think you need be so jolly particular."

"However poor we are, Hendon, we need not lose our self-respect."

"Self-respect! How is a man to have self-respect, without a penny in his pocket?"

"You just showed me pounds."

"Yes, now."

"How did you come by it, Hendon?"

"Don't ask," he cried impatiently. "Take it, and pay that poor girl some wages on account, and give young Bob a tightener. Don't be so squeamish, Rich."

"I will not take the money. You deceived me once before."

"Well, if I'd told you I won it at pool you wouldn't have taken it."

"No," said Rich firmly, "I would sooner have lived on dry bread. This money, then, is part of some gambling transaction?"

"It isn't."

"Then how did you come by it?"

"Well, then, if you will have it, Poynter lent it to me."

"Oh, Hendon, Hendon, has it come to this?" cried Richmond piteously.

"Yes, it has. What is a fellow to do? Home's wretched; one never has a shilling. The guvnor's mad over his essence, as he calls it, and I believe, if he saw us starve, he would smile and sigh."

"No, no. He is so intent upon his discovery, that he does not realise our position."

"His discovery! Bah! Lunacy! There isn't a fellow at Guy's who wouldn't laugh at me if I told him what the guvnor does. Rich, old girl, I'm sick of it! It was madness for me to go through all this training, when I might have been earning money as porter or a clerk.

Everything has been swallowed up in the fees. Why, if Jem Poynter hadn't come forward like a man, and paid the last--"

"What?"

"Well, what are you shouting at?"

"Did Mr Poynter pay your last fees at Guy's?"

"Of course he did. Do you suppose the money was caught at the bottom of a spout after a shower?"

"Hendon, dear Hendon!"

"There, it's no use to be so squeamish. If those last hadn't been paid, it would have been like throwing away all that had been paid before."

"I did not know of this--I did not know of this!"

"Don't, don't, dear! I couldn't help it. I used to feel as bad as you do; but this cursed poverty hardens a man. I fought against it; but Poynter was always after me, tempting me, standing dinners when I was as hungry as a hound; giving me wine and cigars. He has almost forced money on me lots of times; and at--at other times--when I've had a few glasses--I haven't refused it. It's all Janet's fault."

"Hendon!"

"Well, so it is!" cried the young fellow passionately. "If she hadn't thrown me over as she did--"

"To save you from additional poverty."

"No, it didn't; it made me desperate, and ready to drink when a chap like Poynter was jolly, and forced champagne on me. I was as proud as you are once, but my pride's about all gone!"

"Hush! I will not hear you speak like that, Hendon, my own darling brother! For Janet's sake--"

"She's nothing to me now. I was thrown over for some other fellow."

"How dare you, sir! You know it is not true! Dear Janet! Working daily like a slave, and offering me her hard earnings when we were so pressed."

"Did she--did she?" cried Hendon excitedly, and with his pale face flushing up.