Both men boarded it, and were soon on their way uptown.
Harcourt found no difficulty in getting work. He was taken on at once.
And from this day his routine of hard, daily labor began.
He wrote regularly to his mother, two letters each week, and he heard from her frequently, either by notes from herself or from Margaret Wynthrop. He knew that the aged lady continued in fair bodily health, though she did not improve in mental strength. His only satisfaction in thinking of her was that she was happy, comfortable, well cared for, and without the slightest suspicion of the straits to which her poor, only son had been reduced.
So he labored on—humbly, patiently, heroically, as one waiting for an anticipated but an unknown denouément.
And what denouément?
He had acquired a habit, forced upon him by circumstances, of retiring early at night and rising with the dawn of day. He sometimes took a walk before breakfast, then returned and prepared his frugal meal, ate sparingly, set his room in order and started for his day’s work.
One morning he arose from a very restless bed, much earlier than usual, dressed himself and went down the four flights of stairs to the ground floor.
None of his fellow lodgers were yet stirring.
He opened the front door and looked out.