The other did not notice the shade of sarcasm. He passed his hand across his eyes and sighed.
“I have given it up.”
“Have you come into a fortune?”
“No. I have had the deadliest misfortune that can befall a man.”
Something genuinely tragic in his tone made Joyce start up from his dejected attitude and look at his neighbour.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I did not know.”
“Of course not; no one does. At least, no one I can repose any confidence in.”
There was an air of dignity in this oddly attired figure, with the ludicrous silk hat above the black mutton-chop whiskers and bushy white hair, and yet a mute appeal for sympathy which Joyce could not but perceive.
“I, too, have been hard hit lately,” he said, in a low voice.
“Ah, not like me,” said the other, turning round in his seat, so that his words should reach only Joyce’s ear. “Until three weeks ago I had a wife and child. No man ever loved as I did. I worked for them till my brain almost gave way—fifteen hours a day, week after week, starved myself for them, denied myself the clothes on my back. Now I have them no longer. Life is valueless to me.”