"I'm really in a dreadful hole. I think I explained to you once that my father has never been quite fair to me—a hard man, fond of his money—and my sister is his favourite child. I lost my mother years ago and have no one to turn to in my trouble except yourself—so I hope you'll forgive me—but I'm feeling so utterly wretched to-night.
"The fact is I can't go on living in London on my means. It's impossible with my small salary and the result is pressing debts.
"I'm seriously thinking of cutting it all——" ("She won't like that!"—he smiled as he wrote) "and trying again in a new land—Australia—perhaps, or Canada. This country is played out—the competition too strong—and, unless I can see my way clear to raising——"
he paused—"a hundred pounds ... (I daren't ask more at the start, and this would prove a useful sop...) I'm afraid I shall have to throw up my work and, what is more painful still—to say good-bye to my few real friends and start afresh overseas.
"I've written and written to my father!—but he simply ignores my prayer for help. If only my mother were alive how different life would be for me!"
He smiled sourly over the phrase. For Mrs. Somerfield's early death had been accelerated by drink—one of the many crushing blows his hard-working father had survived.
"I know," he started to write again, "you will treat this letter as strictly private. I am bound to come in for a good round sum when my father dies, and with help now I could guarantee to return the loan—with the usual interest, of course.
"I feel I have not the slightest excuse for turning to you in my need—but I can't bear to think of parting with the one true friend life has brought me.
"You have been more than ... a sister to me (I can't say 'Mother'—it's too absurd), and, if ever a man were grateful for it, that man is
"Your ... broken,
"STEPHEN."