His father sat still, lost in thought. He was not looking forward to the days that might come—days probably of hunger and want and weary wandering, with no sleeping place save a corner in a common lodging-house, or a bench in the open air. Somehow the hopeless future seemed to have lost its power to appall him. His mind was back in the past, living over again the days that had been. Then, with a heavy sigh, he came back to the present.
"Did you speak, father?" Gus asked, half-raising himself from the bed into which he had crept.
But the words his father had murmured were not addressed to him.
"Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
"There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery."
This man, whose memory so readily recalled the immortal words of Dante, had had no mean culture. He had passed through a University course with distinction; he had early won laurels in literature; a grand career at the Bar had been prophesied for him when he entered upon his profession. But this was what he had made of the future that had seemed so full of promise.
In misery! Ah, verily, a misery those only know who can recall the "happy time," and set in sharp and bitter contrast that which is, and that which "might have been!"
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE LODGER LEAVES.
EVENING wore into night, but Gus' father still sat absorbed in melancholy thought. Once more the past was living before him. He was back in the days of his childhood, a happy boy, idolised by his proud father and petted by the sister a few years older than himself, who, his mother having died when he was too young to know her, was his tender guardian.
Then passed in review his school days at Eton; then his college days, when he had won a name for himself, and been lauded by the men of his college; but in which—alas!—he had taken the first steps along the path which had proved such a swift descent, taken them gaily and triumphantly, with the belief that he was showing himself a man of spirit and superior sagacity.