The House of Mammon by Fred M. White

To John Sairson, Philip Gosway was no more than a useful tool who was badly paid for a more than adequate service. It was necessary to have a man of good address and appearance, and Gosway fulfilled those requirements. He had fallen low in the world, but retained a measure of self-respect, and his clothes were neat if well worn. In some strange way he contrived to throw off the suggestion of the city once he turned his face homeward, in Sairson's presence he was usually humble, not to say meek, and gave no impression of being still something of an athlete. By the time he had crossed London Bridge his shoulders squared and his step became more elastic. Sairson imagined Gosway as the type of broken-down fellow who loiters about saloon bars when funds permitted. As a matter of fact it was years since Gosway had tasted intoxicants. The great tragedy of his life had come that way, and there had been a time when Philip Gosway swore he would never touch the dread poison again.

Of his inner life John Sairson knew nothing. He had never heard of the quaint cottage tucked away in the quadrangle behind St. Cedric's Church on the other side of the water. He could not have imagined Gosway fresh and gleaming from his bath, and the subsequent vigorous dumb-bell exercise, as he came whistling gaily down to breakfast on the same Saturday morning on which the trap was baited for Lord Laurisdale. The little sitting-room with the mullioned windows and fine stained glass had once formed part of a monk's refectory, the old oak furniture of the later Middle Ages still remained. Outside was a grass forecourt with a pair of lime trees, where the pigeons came for food from Sybil Gosway's own hand. Here was the secret of Philip Gosway's tardy repentance, the restraining force that had prevented him at the crisis of his life from going headlong to perdition.