He raised his head, fixing her with bright narrowed eyes. "I have felt so too: that's my reason for coming. You sent me a generous present some weeks ago—but I don't want to go on living on charity."
"I understand that," she answered. "But why have you had to do so? Won't you tell me just what has happened?"
She felt the words to be almost a mockery; yet she could not say "I read your history at a glance"; and she hoped that her question might draw out his wretched secret, and thus give her the chance to speak frankly.
He gave a nervous laugh. "Just what has happened? It's a long story—and some of the details are not particularly pretty." He broke off, moving his hat more rapidly through his trembling hands.
"Never mind: tell me."
"Well—after you all left Lynbrook I had rather a bad break-down—the strain of Mrs. Amherst's case, I suppose. You remember Bramble, the Clifton grocer? Miss Bramble nursed me—I daresay you remember her too. When I recovered I married her—and after that things didn't go well."
He paused, breathing quickly, and looking about the room with odd, furtive glances. "I was only half-well, anyhow—I couldn't attend to my patients properly—and after a few months we decided to leave Clifton, and I bought a practice in New Jersey. But my wife was ill there, and things went wrong again—damnably. I suppose you've guessed that my marriage was a mistake. She had an idea that we should do better in New York—so we came here a few months ago, and we've done decidedly worse."
Justine listened with a sense of discouragement. She saw now that he did not mean to acknowledge his failing, and knowing the secretiveness of the drug-taker she decided that he was deluded enough to think he could still deceive her.
"Well," he began again, with an attempt at jauntiness, "I've found out that in my profession it's a hard struggle to get on your feet again, after illness or—or any bad set-back. That's the reason I asked you to say a word for me. It's not only the money, though I need that badly—I want to get back my self-respect. With my record I oughtn't to be where I am—and you can speak for me better than any one."
"Why better than the doctors you've worked with?" Justine put the question abruptly, looking him straight in the eyes.