Mr. Rickman stood by the door like one in great haste to be gone. He
could not afford eighteen shillings either. He would stay where he was
on the old terms for a fortnight, at the end of which time, he said
firmly, he would be obliged to go. Mr. Rickman's blue eyes were dark
and profound with the pathos of recent illness and suffering, so that
he appeared to be touched by Mrs. Downey's kindness. But he wasn't
touched by it; no, not the least bit in the world. His heart inside
him was like a great lump of dried leather. Mrs. Downey looked at him,
sighed, and said no more. Things were more serious with him than she
had supposed.
Things were very serious indeed.
His absence at Harmouth had entailed consequences that he had not
foreseen. During those four weeks, owing to the perturbation of his
mind and the incessant demands on his time, he had written nothing.
True, while he was away his poems had found a publisher; but he had
nothing to expect from them; it would be lucky if they paid their
expenses. On his return to town he found that his place on _The
Planet_ had been filled up. At the most he could only reckon on
placing now and then, at infrequent intervals, an article or a poem.
The places would be few, for from the crowd of popular magazines he
was excluded by the very nature of his genius. To make matters worse,
he owed about thirty pounds to Dicky Pilkington. The sum of two
guineas, which _The Museion_ owed him for his sonnet, would, if he
accepted Mrs.
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