When his wife passed by on her way from the shop he nodded to her as if she were a stranger, and presently followed her home at a distance.

He would not be seen on the street with her if he could avoid it.

If by any chance when he was standing on his corner of idleness his little girl came past, he melted away imperceptibly.

He could not bear it that the child should see him standing there in that company of futility and openly avowed inadequacy.

The child was a keen-eyed, slender little girl, resembling neither father nor mother, but looking rather like her paternal grandmother, who was a fair, attenuated woman, with an intelligence which had sharpened on herself for want of anything more legitimate, and worn her out by the unnatural friction.