"You were very kind to take so much trouble."
"I felt quite ashamed of my failure; I feel almost as much ashamed of my success; for it was perfectly accidental. I was looking at some water-coloured sketches in a friend's rooms in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré—sketches of military life, caricatures full of dash and humour, in a style that was quite out of the common way, and which yet seemed in some manner familiar to me. My friend saw that I admired the things. 'They are my latest acquisitions in the way of art,' he said; they are done by a poor fellow who lives in a shabby third-floor near the Luxembourg—an Englishman called Austin. If you admire them so much, you might as well order a set of them. It would be almost an act of charity.' The name struck me at once—your brother's Christian name; and then I remembered that I had been shown some caricature portraits which he had done of his brother-officers—things exactly in the style of the sketches I had been looking at. I asked for this Mr. Austin's address, and drove off at once to find him, with a few lines of introduction from my friend. 'The man is proud,' he said, 'though he carries his poverty lightly enough.'"
"Poor Austin!" sighed Clarissa.
"I need not weary you with minute details. I found this Mr. Austin, and at once recognized your brother; though he is much altered—very much altered. He did not know me until afterwards, when I told him my name, and recalled our acquaintance. There was every sign of poverty: he looked worn and haggard; his clothes were shabby; his painting-room was the common sitting-room; his wife was seated by the open window patching a child's frock; his two children were playing about the room."
"He is married, then? I did not even know that."
"Yes, he is married; and I could see at a glance that an unequal marriage has been one among the causes of his ruin. The woman is well enough—pretty, with a kind of vulgar prettiness, and evidently fond of him. But such a marriage is moral death to any man. I contrived to get a little talk with him alone—told him of my acquaintance with you and of the promise that I had made to you. His manner had been all gaiety and lightness until then; but at the mention of your name he fairly broke down. 'Tell her that I have never ceased to love her,' he said; 'tell her there are times when I dare not think of her.'"
"He has not forgotten me, then. But pray go on; tell me everything."
"There is not much more to tell. He gave me a brief sketch of his adventures since he sold out. Fortune had gone against him. He went to Melbourne, soon after his marriage, which he confessed was the chief cause of his quarrel with his father; but in Melbourne, as in every other Australian city to which he pushed his way, he found art at a discount. It was the old story: the employers of labour wanted skilled mechanics or stalwart navigators; there was no field for a gentleman or a genius. Your brother and his wife just escaped starvation in the new world, and just contrived to pay their way back to the old world. There were reasons why he should not show himself in England, so he shipped himself and his family in a French vessel bound for Havre, and came straight on to Paris, where he told me he found it tolerably easy to get employment for his pencil. 'I give a few lessons,' he said, 'and work for a dealer; and by that means we just contrive to live. We dine every day, and I have a decent coat, though you don't happen to find me in it. I can only afford to wear it when I go to my pupils. It is from-hand-to-mouth work; and if any illness should strike me down, the wife and little ones must starve.'"
"Poor fellow! poor fellow! Did you tell him that I was rich, that I could help him?"
"Yes," answered Mr. Fairfax, with an unmistakable bitterness in his tone;
"I told him that you had married the rich Mr. Granger."