Abuse a man dead and gone, and one, too, who had been good to him in many ways when he, the professor, was younger than he is now, and had just quarrelled with a father who was always only too prone to quarrel with anyone who gave him the chance seems but a poor thing.

The professor's quarrel with his father had been caused by the young man's refusal to accept a Government appointment--obtained with some difficulty--for the very insufficient and, as it seemed to his father, iniquitous reason, that he had made up his mind to devote his life to science.

Wynter, too, was a scientist of no mean order, and would, probably, have made his mark in the world, if the world and its pleasures had not made their mark on him.

He had been young Curzon's coach at one time, and finding the lad a kindred spirit, had opened out to him his own large store of knowledge, and steeped him in that great sea of which no man yet has drank enough--for all begin, and leave it, athirst.
Poor Wynter! The professor, turning in his stride up and down the narrow, uncomfortable room, one of the many that lie off the Strand, finds his eyes resting on that other letter--carelessly opened, barely begun.
From Wynter's solicitor! It seems ridiculous that Wynter should have _had_ a solicitor.

With a sigh, he takes it up, opens it out and begins to read it.