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“I hope with all my heart that your health is as good as ever.

“Your loving son,

“JO.”

The letter was like the boy. He had always been an amiable chap. Old Jolyon had sent this reply:

“MY DEAR JO,

“The sum (£500) stands in my books for the benefit of your boy, under the name of Jolyon

Forsyte, and will be duly-credited with interest at 5 per cent. I hope that you are doing well. My health remains good at present.

“With love, I am,

“Your affectionate Father,

“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

And every year on the 1st of January he had added a hundred and the interest. The sum was mounting up—next New Year’s Day it would be fifteen hundred and odd pounds! And it is difficult to say how much satisfaction he had got out of that yearly transaction. But the correspondence had ended.

In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct, partly constitutional, partly the result, as in thousands of his class, of the continual handling and watching of affairs, prompting him to judge conduct by results rather than by principle, there was at the bottom of his heart a sort of uneasiness. His son ought, under the circumstances, to have gone to the dogs; that law was laid down in all the novels, sermons, and plays he had ever read, heard, or witnessed.