"Hm! nothing very definite, perhaps. But it would have seemed more amicable, for instance, if you'd deposited with us instead of with Childs."

"That is purely a matter of financial judgment. You cannot expect me, who know what your business practices are, to have the confidence in your financial orthodoxy that I have in Childs's. Moreover, I did leave a thousand pounds in your hands, precisely in order to avoid all occasion for remark.”

"And if it were a hundred thousand, you might have it back again with interest to-morrow!" exclaimed Sir Francis, with some vehemence. "But that's not our subject," he continued, after a moment. "You have something in your possession which-if we're to be friends-you can have no objection to making over to me. You know what I mean."

"Do you mean the letter that you wrote me at the time of the -?"

"Never mind the details," interrupted the baronet, in a lowered tone. "Yes, that's it; that and the other papers

...

you know." "I certainly shall not surrender them to you," said Grant with decision. "Your only use for them would be to destroy them. They are my only safeguard. My right to my own property, as well as my personal security, might depend upon them. You talk of mistrusting my goodwill. You would need to be a far more trustworthy man than you have ever shown yourself, Frank Bendibow, before I would place myself so helplessly at your mercy."

"You won't let me have 'em, then?"

"On no account whatever. I am immovable upon that point. You remember that the possession of those papers was the condition of my acting as I did at the . . . twenty years ago. The same considerations that influenced me then have at least equal weight now. You must be content with some other pledge than that. But were you an honest man, you would ask no other pledge than my own word."

"Listen to me, Grantley," said the baronet in a husky and uneven voice; "I'll swear to you by all a man holds sacred, if you'll give those papers to me I'll never take advantage of you. I'll go down on my knees and take any oath you please—I'll do it at this moment if you say so. Think of it, man! Suppose anything were to happen to you that you were to die suddenly, say. Those things would be found and read; and what should I-but it's not that-it's not myself I care about. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall know how to deal with myself. But there's that boy of mine-poor little

fellow! I love him better than my own soul, or anything else. I'd rather you shot me dead here where I sit than that he should ever think ill of his father. All I live for is to make him happy, and to leave him an honourable name and fair prospects. And if, after all I've hoped and done, he will get any wind of this ! I can't endure to think of it," exclaimed the baronet, his voice breaking.

"You're the same Frank Bendibow I knew in the old times," said the other sadly. "I cared a great deal for you then, and I don't know that I'm quite cured of it even yet. The worst about you is, you make yourself believe your own deceptions. I cannot do what you ask; I should risk interests and obligations which I can't discuss here. But I may be able to make some compromise with you. The papers might be given in trust to some third person in whom we both have confidence-to Fillmore, for example —"

"Fillmore be damned!" cried the baronet violently, striking the table with his fist, while his face flushed dark red. "I'll have no compromises; I'll trust neither you nor Fillmore nor any one! How do I know what plot you may have been hatching against me this very day? Will you give me those papers or will you not? Yes or no?"

"I can only repeat that I will not," answered the baronet's guest gravely.

"Then! But, oh, for God's sake, Charley," said Bendibow, his tone abruptly changing from menace to entreaty, "think of my Tom. You're a father yourself; you"

"Hadn't we better put an end to this?" interrupted the other, with an accent between compassion and scorn. "You need not fear for your boy, nor for yourself either. The papers are in no danger of being made public, except by my voluntary act; and it depends entirely upon you whether that ever becomes necessary. I always carry them upon my own person: they are in a sealed envelope, addressed to a friend, who, on receiving them, would, after taking certain precautions, destroy them. In case of my dying suddenly, therefore, your interests would suffer no detriment. That's all I have to say; and now, if you please, we'll dismiss the subject."

"You always carry them about with you?" repeated the baronet, in a muttering tone, his eyes averted.

"I have them on me now. Isn't it getting a little damp out here? My Indian experience makes me cautious."

"It's a cloudy night: there'll be no dew," responded the baronet absently. "Certainly, we'll go into the house, I have some curious old prints I should like you to look at. Stop a moment! I say,

Charley, it's all right; it's all right, old fellow! I didn't mean anything. The fact is, my head is not always quite right, I believe. I get carried away-damme, I ask pardon if I've offended you. Shake hands with me, Charley!" He stretched out his hand and grasped the other's, which he shook hard and yet mechanically, then letting it drop abruptly. "Life's a queer business," he continued with a laugh. "One gets cornered into doing things he wouldn't have fancied himself capable of; it's all circumstances-fate! I'm no worse and no better than others, as far as I can see. Come income in to my study. The evening hasn't begun yet."

"I must be thinking of turning homewards. It will be a dark night."

"Nonsense; I shan't let you go before ten or eleven. Besides, the horse you're to ride won't be ready for a while yet. Come, now, else I'll think you bear me a grudge. You've had it all your own way, so far; you should give me my turn a bit now-eh?”

"I'll willingly stay a little longer, if you wish," said the guest courteously.

"That's right. I won't let you leave me with the idea that I'm a brute and a bully. We used to hit it off pretty well together in the old times. We'll have the old times over again for this one evening-eh? just as if nothing had happened."

And herewith Sir Francis quite threw aside his dejection and preoccupation, and became remarkably vivacious and agreeable. His guest had occasion to admire, more than once, the man's really great social and mental powers. Two or three hours passed rapidly. Then, all at once, Sir Francis complained of severe twinges of pain in his right leg and foot.

I've got another

"That damned gout of mine!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Ah! ah! it's all up with me for the next day or two. Ah! may I trouble you to ring that bell? Tuppin--here, Tuppin, attack. See that everything in my room is ready. old fellow, I'm sorry our evening should end so. time."

Whew! Well, Better luck next

"Can I carry any message to your physician?" asked Grant, who had risen to take his departure.

“Oh, no, I have everything here: and I shall have to fight it out-there's no hastening it. Ah! Good-bye, then, till our next meeting. Tuppin, see that-ah! see that Mr. Grant's horse is brought to the door."

"The 'orse is quite ready, if you please, Sir Francis," Tuppin replied.

"Good-bye then, my dear Grant-good-bye. The lower road, you know, through Isleworth the lower road, eh?"

:

"Yes, I know: good-bye, and a speedy recovery to you," answered the other; and with a kindly look at his suffering host, Mr. Grant left the room under the respectful guidance of Tuppin, and descended the stairs; and having bestowed a gratuity upon the worthy butler, he mounted his horse, and rode away into the summer darkness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

It now becomes our duty to follow for a while the fortunes of Mr. Thomas Bendibow. This honest and prosperous young gentleman, had he been as familiar with the text of Shakespeare as he was with those of some other dramatic authors, might have compared his plight to that of Prince Hamlet, when the noble Dane was in a state of collapse at the spectacle of the domestic revolution which followed so hard upon his father's decease. Though never exceptionally dutiful in his filial relations, he had a genuine fondness for the author of his being, and allowed no liberties to be taken with his name and character by any one besides himself. But since the reception at the house of the Marquise Desmoines, and the conversation that he had overheard there, his mental attitude had undergone a dolorous transformation. What were his other failings? Tom had always possessed the honesty and fearless candour that belonged to his idea of a gentleman, and had never thought of questioning his father's proficiency in the same virtues. Even now, he could not bring himself fully to adopt the inferences which obtruded themselves upon him. Further information might modify the aspect of the case. Nevertheless, an uncertainty as to whether the modification would be for the better or for the worse hindered the young gentleman from putting the matter to the test; moreover, he recoiled, when it came to the point, from directly questioning the baronet on a subject that seemed to involve the latter's honour. The degradation of such a situation would be mutual. Therefore poor Tom nursed his despondency in secret; when all at once it occurred to him, as an illumination from on high, to seek sympathy, and perchance enlightenment, from the Marquise. He did not allow this inspiration time to cool, but proceeded to act upon it at once. With his ostensible purpose in visiting her may have mingled another, not the less dear because not openly avowed, and which we, as well as he, may leave to its own development. So, at about the hour when Mr. Grant and Merton

Fillmore were having their interview in the lawyer's office, Thomas Bendibow, Esquire, caused himself to be announced at Madame Desmoines.

Perdita happened to be in a delightful humour. She had, indeed, a singularly even and cheerful temper, the result of an habitually good digestion, and of a general sense of the adequacy of her means to her ends. Yet she too had her moments of especial loveliness, and this was one of them. She was sitting in a chair by the window, with her hair drawn up on the top of her head, and arranged in flat curls on her forehead. She wore a thin black satin gown, charmingly disposed about the throat and shoulders; a book lay open on her lap, and in her white hands she idly held a piece of embroidery, on which she might be supposed to be at work; though in reality she had taken hardly a dozen stitches in it that afternoon. She was languorous and dreamy.

"Ah, Tom!" she said, stretching her arms above her head, and parting her smiling lips in a pretty yawn, "how pleasant to see you. Poor boy! my pleasure is your pain."

"Eh? Why do you say that?" he enquired, stopping midway in the ceremonious obeisance he was making.

"Your face said it first. So pale and sorrowful! Poor child, what is it?"

"I am not a child, Perdita," said Tom with dignity.

"You are not civil, sir."

"Not civil-to you?"

"It is not civil to remind a lady of her age. I like to remember the time when you and I were children together, Tom, and to forget the years that have passed since then."

"Oh, to be sure! I didn't think of it in that way: and I hope you'll forgive me," said the youth repentantly. "I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world, Perdita-upon my soul, now, I wouldn't! But as to my being a child, you know . . . in a certain way I should like to be that-for your sake, I mean, so that you needn't imagine you're any older: but in another way-as a matter of fact, that is of course I can't help being a man, and feeling it. And in that way, I should like to have you feel it too: because what I feel for you isn't at all what a child would feel, don't you see: and . . . and I hope you understand me!"

"There is a good deal of feeling in what you say," returned the Marquise, with innocent gravity: "but I am not sure I understand what the feeling is about. Is it about yourself?

"I don't believe," said Tom, with melancholy emphasis, "that