The next news came in a note from Lisle himself. On the first page there was a pen-and-ink portrait of the incumbent of St. Sylvester's with a nimbus, and it was elaborately dated "Festival of St. Hilary."
"It is all as good as settled," was his triumphant announcement, "and we are in luck's way, for Judith thinks she has heard of something for herself too. You will see from my sketch that I have had my interview with Mr. Clifton. He is quite delighted with me. A great judge of character, that man! He is to write to one or two references I gave him, but they are sure to be all right, for my friends have been so bored with me and my prospects for the last few weeks that they would swear to my fitness for heaven if it would only send me there. I rather think, however, that St. Sylvester's will suit me better for a little while. His Reverence is going to look me up some pupils, and I have bought a Churchman's almanac, and am thinking about starting an oratorio instead of my opera. Wasn't it strange that when your letter came from Brenthill we should remember that an old friend of my mother's lived there? Judith and she have been writing to each other ever since. Clifton is evidently undergoing tortures with the man he has got now, so I should not wonder if we are at Brenthill in a few days. It will be better for my chance of pupils too. I shall look you up without fail, and expect you to know everything about lodgings. How about Bellevue street? Are you far from St. Sylvester's?"
Thorne read the letter carefully, and drew from it two conclusions and a perplexity. He concluded that Bertie Lisle's elastic spirits had quickly recovered the shock of his father's failure and flight, and that he had not the faintest idea that any property of his--Percival's--had gone down in the wreck. So much the better.
His perplexity was, What was Miss Lisle going to do? Could the "we" who were to arrive imply that she meant to accompany her brother? And what was the something she had heard of for herself? The words haunted him. Was the ruin so complete that she too must face the world and earn her own living? A sense of cruel wrong stirred in his inmost soul.
He made up his mind at last that she was coming to establish Bertie in his lodgings before she went on her own way. He offered any help in his power when he answered the letter, but he added a postscript: "Don't think of Bellevue street: you wouldn't like it." He heard no more till one day he came back to his early dinner and found a sealed envelope on his table. It contained a half sheet of paper, on which Bertie had scrawled in pencil, "Why did you abuse Bellevue street? We think it will do. And why didn't you say there were rooms in this very house? We have taken them, so there is an end of your peaceful solitude. I'm going to practise for ever and ever. If you don't like it there's no reason why you shouldn't leave: it's a free country, they say."