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 “I do: the fellow spoke to me nothing but truth and sense. I answered him just as roughly as I did the rest, who jabbered mere gibberish. I couldn’t make distinctions there and then: his appearance told what he had gone through lately clearer than his words: but where is the use of explaining? Let him have work.”

“Let him have it yourself. If you are so very much in earnest, strain a point.”

“If there was a point left in my affairs to strain, I would strain it till it cracked again; but I received letters this morning which show me pretty nearly where I stand, and it is not far off the end of the plank. My foreign market, at any rate, is gorged. If there is no change—if there dawns no prospect of peace—if the Orders in Council are not, at least, suspended, so as to open our way in the West—I do not know where I am to turn. I see no more light than if I were sealed in a rock; so that for me to pretend to offer a man a livelihood would be to do a dishonest thing.”

“Come, let us take a turn on the front: it is a starlight night,” said Mr. Yorke.

They passed out, closing the front-door after them, and, side by side, paced the frost-white pavement to and fro.

“Settle about Farren at once,” urged Mr. Moore.