“Are they—dead?” asked Joyce.
“No. Gone off with the lodger on the first floor,” replied Noakes, solemnly.
Joyce remained silent. What could he say? He looked sympathetic. Noakes blew his nose in a dirty piece of calico with frayed edges that courtesy called a pocket-handkerchief, and continued:—
“So my life is wrecked. My imagination is darkened and I can write no more. I have given up my literary ambitions. It is not worth while writing penny bloods at half a crown a thousand for one’s own support.”
“What are you going to do then?” asked Joyce, interested in the quaint creature.
“I am going abroad. I have come here perhaps for the last time. On the day after to-morrow I sail for South Africa.”
Was it a sudden inspiration? Was it the coming to a head of vague resolutions, despairs, workings, the final word of a destiny driving him from England? Was it a sudden sense of protecting brotherhood towards this forlorn, tragic scarecrow of a man? Joyce never knew. Possibly it was all bursting upon his soul at once. Springing to his feet, he held out his hand to Noakes.
“By all that’s holy, I ’ll come with you!” he cried, in a strange voice.
The other, after some hesitation, took his hand and looked at him pathetically.
“Are you in earnest?”