For two years things had gone miserably with them, their only piece of good fortune being the death of the youngest child.

John was confirmed in a habit of drinking.

Not that he had become a brutal sot; sometimes for as much as a month he would keep sober, and even when he gave way to temptation he never behaved with violence to his wife and children.
Still, the character of his life had once more suffered a degradation, and he possessed no friends who could be of the least use to him.
Snowdon, for some reason of his own, maintained a slight intercourse with the Peckovers, and through them he endeavoured to establish an intimacy with Hewett; but the project utterly failed.

Probably on Kirkwood's account, John met the old man's advances with something more than coldness.

Sternly he had forbidden his wife and the little ones to exchange a word of any kind with Sidney, or with any friend of his.