The next morning Clary was seriously indisposed, and her cousin took his breakfast alone. After making many anxious inquiries about her, and being assured by old Ruth that she only required rest to be quite well again, he retired to Frederic's study; and taking up a volume of a new work that was just out, he was soon buried in its contents.
A loud altercation in the passage, between some person who insisted upon seeing Mr. Hurdlestone and old Ruth, broke in upon his studies.
"Will you please to send up your name, sir?" said Ruth, in no very gentle tones; "Mr. Hurdlestone is busy."
"No. I told you before that I would announce myself."
Anthony instantly recognised the voice, and before he could lay aside the book, Godfrey Hurdlestone stood before him.
How changed--how dreadfully changed he was, since they last met. The wicked career of a few months had stamped and furrowed his brow with the lines of years. His dress was mean and faded. He looked dirty and slovenly, and little of his former manly beauty and elegance of person remained. So utterly degraded was his appearance, that a cry of surprise broke from Anthony's lips, so inexpressibly shocked was he at an alteration so startling.
"I suppose you know me, Anthony," said Godfrey, with a sarcastic smile; "I can't be so changed as all that?"
"For the worse, of course. Yes, poverty soon brings a man down who has never been used to work. It has brought me down--down to the very dust."
"I am sorry to hear you say so. I thought that you were comfortably settled with the Whitmores until you could procure a tutorship. With your education and abilities, Godfrey, you should not appear thus."
"I left the Whitmores a long time ago. I thought you had heard that piece of ill news, for such stories travel apace. You must know that, as ill-luck would have it, Juliet learned from Mary all the particulars of that unfortunate business, and I, of course, had to decamp. Since then the world has gone all wrong with me, and one misfortune has followed upon another, until I stand before you a lost and ruined man; and if you, Anthony, refuse to assist me, I must go headlong to destruction."
In spite of all his affected boldness, it was evident that the speaker was dreadfully agitated. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, his fine features swollen and distorted, and his face as pale as ashes.