"Nothing, thank you, Thorndyke, nothing. But it is very kind of you, all the same. I remember your wife very well. She was good to me in old days. Give her my love, Thorndyke, and good-bye."
"Good-bye, till happier times, sir," said the old servant, as Mr. Graydon went out in the streaming night.
The lights of a hansom blinked through the rain as he turned north-eastward. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a few coins, and looked at them.
"No," he said, "I can't afford it. I must walk part of the way, and 'bus the rest. I shall just have time to do it."
But by the time he got to Euston he could only snatch a few fragments of food. And so it was wet, chilled, and half-fed that he made his return journey.
His uncle's suggestion about Lady Jane disturbed him oddly, though he tried to thrust it from him as impossible; but it recurred again and again.
"After all," he thought at last, "it might explain why she sought us out, and why she wanted Pamela. If I unwittingly did her the injury that she should have cared for me, who had no love to give her, it would be like a woman's generosity to repay me in that way. Ah! but women are better nowadays. She must have been a happy woman with Gerald, happier than with a worthless fellow like me, who could bring her neither honour nor glory. Ah! if it is true, and she should repay my Pam with happiness, how wonderful it would be! And there is no goodness which is impossible to a woman, praise be to the Source!"
Despite the damp and discomfort, his thoughts made him fall asleep with a smile on his face.