"I thought perhaps a word to you, sir," went on the man half wistfully. "We're to go to-morrow if I can't pay, and I can't. A couple of weeks might have made all the difference. It was for the wife I came, sneaking up here like a thief. She's lost two little ones; they never but opened their eyes on the world to shut them again. I'm glad on it now. But women aren't made that way. There's another coming. She's not strong. I doubt but the shock'll not take her and the little one too. Better for them both if it does. A man can face odds, and remake his life if he is a man--" he stopped.
"I was a fool to come," said the man drearily. "'Twas the weather did it in the end. I'd gone mad-like listening to the wind and rain, and thinking of her and the child that was to be--" again he stopped.
Nicholas was watching him from under the penthouse of his eyebrows. Suddenly he spoke.
"How soon could you pay your rent?" he demanded.
"In a fortnight most like, sir. Three weeks for certain."
"I have, sir. But it's the tick of time, or out you go."
"How has it happened now?" The questions came short, incisive.
"How has it happened now?" repeated Nicholas distinctly.
"Tell me the whole story," said Nicholas curtly.
"Her son got into a bit of trouble, sir. It was a matter of a sovereign or going to gaol. He's only a youngster, and the prison smell sticks. Trust folk for nosing it out. He's got a chance now, and will be sending his mother a trifle presently."
"Well, sir, I don't suppose it'll be more'n a trifle he'll send; and she's got her work cut out to make both ends meet."
"Then I suppose you _gave_ her the money?"
"How did you intend to raise the money due for your rent, then?" demanded Nicholas less curtly.
Job left off fidgeting. He felt on safer ground here.
"It just meant a bit extra saved from each week," he said eagerly. "You can do it if you've time. Boiling water poured into the morning teapot for evenings, and knock off your bit of bacon, and--well, there's lots of ways, sir, and women is wonderful folk for managing, the best ones. Where it's thought and trouble they'll do it, and they'd be using strength too if they'd got it, but some of them hasn't."
"Hmm," said Nicholas. He put up his hand to his mouth. "So you _gave_ money you knew would never be repaid, knowing, too, that it meant possible homelessness."