"Michael! Michael!"
"You don't mean to say it is you?" exclaimed the other, in tones which expressed no pleasure at the meeting. "You, Frank, after all these years! I thought you were dead."
"And perhaps hoped that I were," returned the other, retreating a step or two, whilst an air of hopelessness came over him again. "Well, it's no wonder. I'm not a brother you can be proud of."
Michael looked at him for a moment ere he made reply. The man appeared thin, and cold, and ill; but his was not one of the most abject-looking of the forms to be seen abroad in London. His clothes, though worn and threadbare, were decently tidy.
"You've only yourself to thank for being what you are," Michael said. "Drink and gambling and bad company bring a man to this."
"I've given up the drink, and gambling too, thank God!" said his brother. "I've been a teetotaler for more than a year, Michael."
"I'm glad to hear it," replied Michael, his tone implying that he doubted the statement. "But if that is so, how do you come to be in such low water? How do you live?"
"I can scarcely tell you how I live," returned the other. "I shouldn't live at all, if it were not for my little girl."
"Your little girl!" exclaimed Michael. "You don't mean to say that you've been so foolish as to marry?"
"I married many years ago, and I had one of the best of wives, though, God forgive me! I was often a brute to her. It was foolish of her to take me, no doubt, but I could never regret it. Whilst she lived, things were better with me; but when she died I went all wrong again. And now, when I fain would live a different life, I can't find any one willing to give me a chance."