CHAPTER XI.

A DINNER AT THE COURT, WITH AN EPISODE.

Crossing from the station to his brougham, Sir Simon saw Mr. Langrove issuing from a cottage on the road. The vicar had been detained later than he foresaw on a sick-call, and was hurrying home to dress for dinner. It was raining sharply. Sir Simon hailed him:

“Shall I give you a lift, Langrove?”

“Thank you; I shall be very glad. I am rather late as it is.” And they got into the brougham together.

“And how wags the world with you, my reverend friend? Souls being saved in great numbers, eh?” inquired the baronet when they had exchanged their friendly greetings.

“Humph! I am thankful not to have the counting of them,” was the reply, with a shake of the head that boded ill for the sanctification of Dullerton.

“That’s it, is it? Well, we are all going down the hill together; there is some comfort in that. But how about Miss Bulpit? Don’t her port wine and tracts snatch a few brands from the burning?”

“For the love of heaven don’t speak to me of her! Don’t, I beg of you!” entreated the vicar, throwing up his hands deprecatingly, and moved from the placid propriety that seemed a law of nature to him.

“Suppose I had good news to report of her?”

“How so?” cried Mr. Langrove with sudden vivacity. “She’s not going to marry Sparks, is she?”

“Not just yet; but the next best thing to that. She is going to leave the neighborhood.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“I do indeed. How is it you’ve not heard of it before? She’s been pestering Anwyll these two years about some repairs or improvements she wants done in her house--crotchets, I dare say, that would have to be pulled to pieces for the next tenant. He has always politely referred her to his agent, which means showing her to the door; but at last she threatened to leave if he did not give in and do what she wants.”

“Oh! is that all?” exclaimed the vicar, crestfallen. “I might have waited a little before I hallooed; we are not out of the woods yet. Anwyll is sure to give in rather than let her go.”

“Nothing of the sort. He dislikes the old lady, and so does his mother, and so particularly does your venerable _confrère_ of Rydal Rectory. I met Anwyll this morning at the club, and he told me he had made up his mind to let her go. It happens--luckily for you, I suspect--that he has a tenant in view to take her place. Come, now, cheer up! Is not that good news?”

“Most excellent!” said the vicar emphatically. “I wonder where she will move to?”

“Perhaps I could tell you that too. She is in treaty with Charlton for a dilapidated old hunting lodge of his in the middle of a fir-wood the other side of Axmut Common, about twenty miles the other side of Moorlands; it is as good as settled, I believe, and if so we are all safe from her.”

“Well, you do surprise me!” exclaimed Mr. Langrove, his countenance expanding into a breadth of satisfaction that was absolutely radiant. “Who is the incumbent of Axmut, let me see?” he said, musing.

“There is as good as none; it is a lonely spot, with no church within ten miles, I believe. I shrewdly suspect this was the main attraction; for the life of him, Charlton says, he can’t see any other. It is a tumble-down, fag-end-of-the-world-looking place as you would find in all England. It must be the clear coast for ‘dealing with souls,’ as she calls it, that baited her. There is a community of over a hundred poor people, something of the gypsy sort, scattered over the common and in a miserable little hamlet they call the village; so she may preach away to her heart’s content, and no one to compete or interfere with her but the blacksmith, who rants every Sunday under a wooden shed, or on a tub on the common, according to the state of the weather.”

“Capital! That’s just the place for her!” was the vicar’s jubilant remark.

In spite of the pleasure that lit up his features, usually so mild and inexpressive, Sir Simon, looking closely at the vicar, thought him worn and aged. “You look tired, Langrove. You are overworked, or else Miss Bulpit has been too much for you; which is it?” he said kindly.

“A little of both, perhaps,” the vicar laughed. “I have felt the recent cold a good deal; the cold always pulls me down. I’ll be all right when the spring comes round and hunts the rheumatism out of my bones,” he added, moving his arm uncomfortably.

“You ought to do like the swallow--migrate to a warm climate before the cold sets in,” observed Sir Simon; “nothing else dislodges rheumatism.”

“That’s just what Blink was saying to me this morning. He urged me very strongly to go away for a couple of months now to get out of the way of the east winds. He wants me to take a trip to the South of France.” Mr. Langrove laughed gently as he said this.

“And why don’t you?”

“Because I can’t afford it.”

“Nonsense, nonsense! Take it first, and afford it afterwards. That’s my maxim.”

“A very convenient maxim for you, but not so practicable for an incumbent with a large family and a short income as for the landlord of Dullerton,” said Mr. Langrove good-humoredly.

The baronet winced.

“Prudence and economy are all very well,” he replied, “but they may be carried too far; your health is worth more to you than any amount of money. If you want the change, you should take it and pay the price.”

“I suppose we might have most things, if we choose to take them on those terms,” remarked the vicar. “‘Take it and pay the price!’ says the poet; but some prices are too high for any value. Who would do my work while I was off looking after my health? Is that Bourbonais hurrying up the hill? He will get drenched; he has no umbrella.”

“Like him to go out a day like this without one,” said Sir Simon in an accent of fond petulance. “How is he? How is Franceline? How does she look?”

“Poorly enough. If she were my child, I should be very uneasy about her.”

“Ha! does Bourbonais seem uneasy? Do you see much of him?”

“No; not through my fault, nor indeed through his. We have each our separate work, and these winter days are short. I met him this morning coming out of Blink’s as I went in. I did not like his look; he had his hat pulled over his eyes, and when I spoke to him he answered me as if he hardly knew who I was or what he was saying.”

“And you did not ask if there was anything amiss?” said Sir Simon in a tone of reproach.

“I did, but not him. I asked Blink.”

“Ha! what did he say?” And the baronet bent forward for the answer with an eager look.

“Nothing very definite--you know his grandiloquent, vague talk--but he said something about hereditary taint on the lungs; and I gathered that he thought it was a mistake not having taken her to a warm climate immediately after that accident to her chest; but whether the mistake was his or the count’s I could not quite see. I imagine from what he said that there was a money difficulty in the way, or he thought there was, and did not, perhaps, urge the point as strongly as he otherwise would.”

Sir Simon fell back on the cushions, muttering some impatient exclamation.

“That was perhaps a case where the maxim of ‘take it first and afford it afterwards’ would seem justifiable,” observed Mr. Langrove.

“Of course it was! But Bourbonais is such an unmanageable fellow in those things. The strongest necessity will never extract one iota of a sacrifice of principle from him; you might as well try to bend steel.”

“He has always given me the idea of a man of a very high sense of honor, very scrupulous in doing what he considers his duty,” said Mr. Langrove.

“He is, he is,” assented the baronet warmly; “he is the very ideal and epitome of honor and high principle. Not to save his life would he swerve one inch from the straight road; but to save Franceline I fancied he might have been less rigid.” He heaved a sigh, and they said no more until the brougham let Sir Simon down at his own door, and then drove on to take Mr. Langrove to the vicarage.

A well-known place never appears so attractive as when we look at it for the last time. An indifferent acquaintance becomes pathetic when seen through the softening medium of a last look. It is like breaking off a fraction of our lives, snapping a link that can never be joined again. A sea-side lodging, if it can claim one sweet or sad memory with our passing sojourn there, wears a touching aspect when we come to say “good-by,” with the certainty that we shall never see the place again. But how if the spot has been the cradle of our childhood, the home of our fathers for generations, where every stone is like a monument inscribed with sacred and dear memories? Sir Simon was not a sentimental man; but all the tenderness common to good, affectionate, cultivated natures had its place in his heart. He had always loved the old home. He was proud of it as one of the finest and most ancient houses of his class in England; he admired its grand and noble proportions, its architectural strength and beauty; and he had the reverence for it that every well-born man feels for the place where his fathers were born, and where they have lived and died. But never had the lordly Gothic mansion looked to him so home-like as on this cold January evening when he entered it, in all human probability, for the last time. It was brilliantly lighted up to welcome him. The servants, men and women, were assembled in the hall to meet him. It was one of those old-fashioned patriarchal customs that were kept up at the Court, where so many other old customs survived, unhappily less harmless than this. As Sir Simon passed through the two rows of glad, respectful faces, he had a pleasant word for all, as if his heart were free from care.

The hall was a sombre, cathedral-like apartment that needed floods of light to dispel its oppressive solemnity. To-night it was filled with a festal breadth of light; the great chandelier that hung from the groined roof was in a blaze, while the bronze figures all around supported clusters of lamps that gleamed like silver balls against the dark wainscoting. The dining-room and library, which opened to the right, stood open, and displayed a brilliant illumination of lamps and wax-lights. Huge fires burned hospitably on all the hearths. The table was ready spread; silver and crystal shone and sparkled on the snowy damask; flowers scented the air as in a garden. Sir Simon glanced at it all as he passed. Could it be that he was going to leave all this, never to behold it again? It seemed impossible that it could be true.

As he stood once more in the midst of his household gods, those familiar divinities whose gentle power he had never fully recognized until now, it seemed to him that he was safe. There was an unaccountable sense of security in their mere presence; they smiled on him, and seemed to promise protection for their shrine and their votary.

The baronet went straight to his room, made a hasty toilet, and came down to the library to await his guests.

He was in hopes that Raymond would have come before the others, and that they might have a little talk together. But Raymond was behind them all. Everybody was assembled, the dinner was waiting, and he had not yet arrived.

It was a mere chance that he came at all. Nothing, in fact, but the dread of awakening Franceline’s suspicions had withheld him from sending an excuse at the last moment; but that dread, which so controlled his life in every act, almost in every thought, compelling him to hide his feelings under a mask of cheerfulness when his heart was breaking, drove him out to join the merry-makers. It was all true what Mr. Langrove had said. There had been a return of the spitting of blood that morning, very slight, but enough to frighten Angélique and hurry her off with her charge to the doctor. He had talked vaguely about debility--nervous system unstrung--no vital mischief so far; the lungs were safe. The old woman was soothed, and went home resolved to do what was to be done without alarming her master or telling him what had occurred. She counted, however, without Miss Merrywig. That pleasant old lady happened from the distance to see them coming from the doctor’s house, and, on meeting the count next morning, asked what report there was of Franceline. Raymond went straight to Blink’s.

“I ask you as a man of honor to tell me the truth,” he said; “it is a matter of life and death to me to know it.”

The medical man answered his question by another: “Tell me frankly, are you in a position to take her immediately to a warm climate? I should prefer Cairo; but if that is impossible, can you take her to the South of France?”

Raymond’s heart stood still. Cairo! It had come to this, then.

“I can take her to Cairo,” he said, speaking deliberately after a moment’s silence. “I will take her at once.”

He thought of Sir Simon’s blank check. He would make use of it. He would save his child; at least he would keep her with him a few years longer. “Why did you not tell me this sooner?” he asked in a tone of quick resentment.

“I did not believe it to be essential. I thought from the first it would have been desirable; but you may recollect, when I suggested taking her even to the South of France, your daughter opposed the idea with great warmth, and you were silent. I inferred that there was some insuperable obstacle in the way, and that it would have been cruel as well as useless to press the matter.”

“And you say it is not too late?”

“No. I give you my word, as far as I can see, it is not. The return of the spitting of blood is a serious symptom, but the lungs as yet are perfectly sound.” M. de la Bourbonais went home, and opened the drawer where he kept the blank check; not with the idea of filling it up there and then--he must consider many things first--but he wanted to see it, to make sure it was not a dream. He examined it attentively, and replaced it in the drawer. A gleam of satisfaction broke out on the worn, anxious face. But it vanished quickly. His eye fell on Sir Simon’s letter of the day before. He snatched it up and read it through again. A new and horrible light was breaking on him. Sir Simon was a ruined man; he was going to be turned out of house and home; he was a bankrupt. What was his signature worth? So much waste paper. He could not have a sixpence at his bankers’ or anywhere else; if he had, it was in the hands of the creditors who were to seize his house and lands. “Why did he give it to me? He must have known it was worth nothing!” thought Raymond, his eyes wandering over the letter with a gaze of bewildered misery.

But Sir Simon had not known it. It was not the first time he had overdrawn his account with his bankers; but they were an old-fashioned firm, good Tories like himself. The Harnesses had banked with them from time immemorial, and there existed between them and their clients of this type a sort of adoption. If Sir Simon was in temporary want of ready money, it was their pleasure as much as their business to accommodate him; the family acres were broad and fat. Sir Simon was on friendly but not on confidential terms with his bankers; they knew nothing of the swarm of leeches that were fattening on those family acres, so there was no fear in their minds as to the security of whatever accommodation he might ask at their hands. When Sir Simon signed the check he felt certain it would be honored for any amount that Raymond was likely to fill it up for. But since then things had come to a crisis; his signature was now worth nothing. Lady Rebecca, on whose timely departure from this world of care he had counted so securely as the means of staving off a catastrophe, had again disappointed him, and the evil hour so long dreaded and so often postponed had come. Little as Raymond knew of financial mysteries, he was too intelligent not to guess that a man on the eve of being made a bankrupt could have no current account at his bankers’. Dr. Blink’s decree was, then, the death-warrant of his child! Raymond buried his face in his hands in an agony too deep for tears. But the sound of Franceline’s step on the stairs roused him. For her sake he must even now look cheerful; love is a tyrant that allows no quarter to self. She came in and found her father busy, writing away as if absorbed in his work. She knew his moods. Evidently he did not want her just now; she would not disturb him, but drew her little stool to the chimney corner and began to read. An hour passed. It was time for her father to dress for dinner; but still the sound of the pen scratching the paper went on diligently.

“Petit père, it is half-past six, do you know?” said the bright, silvery voice, and Raymond started as if he had been stung.

“So late, is it? Then I must be off at once.” And he hurried away to dress, and only looked in to kiss her as he ran down-stairs, and was off.

“Loiterer!” exclaimed Sir Simon, stretching out both hands and clasping his friend’s cordially.

“I have kept you waiting, I fear. The fact is, I got writing and forgot the hour,” said the count apologetically.

Dinner was announced immediately, and the company went into the dining-room.

They were a snug number, seven in all; the only stranger amongst them being a Mr. Plover, who happened to be staying at Moorlands. He was an unprepossessing-looking man, sallow, keen-eyed, and with a mouth that superficial observers would have called firm, but which a physiognomist might have described as cruel. His hair was dyed, his teeth were false--a shrunken, shrivelled-looking creature, whose original sap and verdure, if he ever had any, had been parched up by the fire of tropical suns. He had spent many years in India, and was now only just returned from Palestine. What he had been doing there nobody particularly understood. He talked of his studies in geology, but they seemed to have been chiefly confined to the study of such stones as had a value in the general market; he had a large collection of rubies, sapphires, and diamonds, some of which he had shown to Mr. Charlton, and excited his wonder as to the length of the purse that could afford to collect such costly souvenirs of foreign lands simply as souvenirs. Mr. Plover had met his host accidentally a week ago, and discovered that he and the father of the latter had been school-fellows. The son was not in a position either to verify or disprove the assertion, but Mr. Plover was so fresh in his affectionate recollection of his old form-fellow that young Charlton’s heart warmed to him, and he then and there invited him down to Moorlands. He could not do otherwise than ask Sir Simon to include him in his invitation to the Court this evening; but he did it reluctantly. He was rather ashamed of his pompous, self-sufficient friend, whose transparent faith in the power and value of money gave a dash of vulgarity to his manners, which was heightened by contrast with the well-bred simplicity of the rest of the company. He had not been ten minutes in the room when he informed them that he meant to buy an estate if he could find an eligible one in this neighborhood; if not, he would rent the first that was to be had on a long lease. He wanted to be near his young friend Charlton. Sir Simon was extremely civil to him--surprisingly so.

The other faces we know: Mr. Langrove, bland, serious, mildly exhilarated just now, like a man suddenly relieved of a toothache--Miss Bulpit was going from the parish; Mr. Charlton running his turquois ring through his curly light hair, and agreeing with everybody all round; Lord Roxham, well-bred and lively; Sir Ponsonby Anwyll, a pleasant sample of the English squire, blond-visaged, good-tempered, burly-limbed, and displaying a vast amount of shirt-front; M. de la Bourbonais, a distinct foreign type, amidst these familiar English ones, the face furrowed with deep lines of study, of care too, unmistakably, the forehead moulded to noble thought, the eyes deep-set under strong projecting black brows, their latent fire flashing out through the habitually gentle expression when he grew animated. He was never a talkative man in society, and to-night he was more silent than usual; but no one noticed this, not even Sir Simon. He was too much absorbed in his own preoccupation. Raymond sat opposite him as his _alter ego_, doing the honors of one side of the hospitable round table.

The conversation turned at first on generalities and current events; the presence of Mr. Plover, instead of feeding it with a fresh stream, seemed to check the flow and prevent its becoming intimate and personal. Sir Simon felt this, and took it in his own hands and kept it going, so that, if not as lively as usual, it did not flag. Raymond looked on and listened in amazement. Was yesterday’s letter a dream, and would this supreme crisis vanish as lesser ones had so often done? Was it possible that a man could be so gay--so, to all appearance, contented and unconcerned, on the very brink of ruin, disgrace, beggary, banishment--all, in a word, that to a man of the baronet’s character and position constitute existence? He was not in high spirits. Raymond would not so much have wondered at that. High spirits are sometimes artificial; people get them up by stimulants as a cloak for intense depression. No, it was real cheerfulness and gayety. Was there any secret hope bearing him up to account for the strange anomaly? Raymond could speculate on this in the midst of his own burning anxiety; but for the first time in his life bitterness mingled with his sympathy for the baronet. Was it not all his own doing, this disgrace that had overtaken him? He had been an unprincipled spendthrift all his life, and now the punishment had come, and was swallowing up others in its ruin. If he had not been the reckless, extravagant man that he was, he might at this moment be a harbor of refuge to Raymond, and save his child from a premature death. But he was powerless to help any one. This is what his slavish human respect had brought himself and others to. A few hundred pounds might save, or at any rate prolong for perhaps many years, the life of the child he professed to love as his own, and he had not them to give; he had squandered his splendid patrimony in the most contemptible vanity, in selfish indulgence and unprofitable show. And there he sat, a piece of tinsel glittering like true gold, affable, jovial, as if care were a hundred miles away from him. M. de la Bourbonais felt as if he were in a dream, as if everything were unreal--everything except the vulture that was gnawing silently at his own heart.

The conversation grew livelier as the wine went round. Mr. Plover was attending carefully to his dinner, and was content to let others do the most of the talking. A discussion arose as to a case of something very like perjury that a magistrate of the next county had been involved in. Some were warmly defending, while others as warmly condemned, him. Mr. Plover suspended the diligence of his knife and fork to join with the latter; he was almost aggressive in his manner of contradicting the other side. The story was this: A magistrate had to judge a case of libel where the accused was a friend of his own, who had saved him from being made a bankrupt some years before by lending him a large sum of money without interest or security. The evidence broke down, and the man was acquitted. It transpired, however, a few days later, that the magistrate had in his possession at the time of the trial proof positive of his friend’s guilt. In answer to this charge he replied that the evidence in question had come to his knowledge under the seal of confidence; that he was therefore bound in honor not only not to divulge it, but to ignore its existence in forming his judgment on the case. The statement was denied, and it was affirmed that the only seal which bound him was one of gratitude, and that he was otherwise perfectly free to make use of his information to condemn the accused.

The dispute as to the right and the wrong of the question was growing hot, when Sir Ponsonby Anwyll, who noticed how silent Raymond was, called out to him across the table:

“And what do you say, count?”

“I should say that gratitude in such a case might stand in the place of a verbal promise and compel the judge to be silent,” replied Raymond.

“The temptation to silence was very strong, no doubt, but would it justify him in pronouncing an acquittal against his conscience?” asked Mr. Langrove.

“It was not against his conscience,” replied the count; “on the contrary, it was in accordance with it, since it was on the side of mercy.”

“Quite a French view of the subject!” said Mr. Plover superciliously, showing his shining teeth through his coal-black moustache. “If I were a criminal, commend me to a French jury; but if innocent, give me an English one!”

“Mercy has perhaps too much the upper hand with our tender-hearted neighbors,” observed Sir Simon; “but justice is none the worse for being tempered with it.”

“That is neither here nor there,” said Mr. Plover. “Justice is justice, and law is law; and it strikes me this Mr. X---- has tampered with both, and it’s a very strange thing if he is not tabooed as a perjurer who has dodged the letter of the law and escaped the hulks, but whom no gentleman ought from this out to associate with.”

“Come, come, that is rather strong language,” said Mr. Langrove. “We must not outlaw on mere inferential evidence a man who has borne all his life a most honorable name; and if worse comes to worst, we must remember it would go hard with the best of us to put a social brand on a friend that we were deeply indebted to, if we could by any possibility find a loophole of escape for him. A man may remain strictly honest in the main, and yet not be heroic enough not to save a friend on a quibble.”

“Why, to be sure; there are honest men and honest men,” assented Plover. “I’ve known some whose moral capacity expanded to camels when expediency demanded the feat and it could be done discreetly. It’s astounding what some of these honest men can swallow.”

Sir Simon felt what this speech implied of impertinence to Mr. Langrove, and, indeed, to everybody present. “Roxham,” he said irrelevantly, “why is your glass empty? Bourbonais, are you passing those delectable little _patés de foie gras_?”

Raymond helped himself mechanically, as the servant presented again the rejected dish.

“It would be a nice thing to define exactly the theory of truth and its precise limits,” observed Mr. Langrove in his serious, sententious way, addressing himself to no one in particular.

“One should begin by defining the nature of truth, I suppose,” said Mr. Plover. “Let us have a definition from our host!”

“Oh! if you are going in for metaphysics, I hand you over to Bourbonais!” said Sir Simon good-humoredly. “Take the pair of them in hand, Raymond, and run them through the body for our edification.”

Raymond smiled.

“I should very much like to have the count’s opinion on this particular point of metaphysics or morals, whichever it may be,” said Mr. Plover. “Do you believe it possible for a man to effect such a compromise with his conscience, and yet be, as our reverend friend describes him, a blameless and upright man?”

“I do,” answered M. de la Bourbonais with quiet emphasis. “I doubt if any simple incident can with safety be taken as the key of a man’s character. One fault, for instance, may stand out in his life and color it with dishonor, and yet be a far less trustworthy index to his real nature than, a very slight fault committed deliberately and involving no consequences. We are more deliberate in little misdeeds than in great ones. When a man commits a crime, he is not always a free agent as regards the command of his moral forces; there are generally a horde of external influences at work overpowering his choice, which is in reality his individual self. When he succumbs to this pressure from without, we cannot therefore logically consider him as the sole and deliberate architect of his sin; hard necessity, fear of disgrace, love of life, nay, some generous feeling, such as gratitude or pity, may hurry a man into a criminal action as completely at variance with the whole of his previous and subsequent life as would be the act of a Christian flinging himself out of the window in a fit of temporary insanity.”

“Subtly put,” sneered Mr. Plover. “If we were to follow up that theory, we might find it necessary on investigation to raise statues to our forgers and murderers, instead of sending them to the hulks and the gallows.”

“It opens a curious train of thought, nevertheless,” remarked Lord Roxham.

“I don’t fancy it would be a very profitable one to pursue,” said Plover.

“I have sometimes considered whether it may not on given occasions be justifiable to do evil; I mean technically evil, as we class things,” said Lord Roxham.

“For instance?” said Mr. Langrove.

“Well, for instance--I’ll put it mildly--to convey a false idea of facts, as your friend X---- seems to have done in this libel business. I suppose there are cases where it would be morally justifiable?”

“To tell a lie, you mean? That is a startling proposition,” said the vicar, smiling.

“It has the merit of originality, at least,” observed Mr. Plover, helping himself to a tumblerful of claret.

“I’m afraid it can’t boast even that,” said Lord Roxham; “it is only an old sophism rather bluntly put.”

“I should like to hear the Count de la Bourbonais’ opinion on it,” said Mr. Plover, rolling the decanter across to his self-elected antagonist.

Raymond had feigned unconsciousness of the stranger’s insolent tone thus far, though he had detected it from the first, and was only too deeply possessed by other thoughts to resent it or to care a straw for what this stranger or any human being thought of him or said to him. But the persistency of the attack forced him to notice it at last, if not to repel it; he was not sufficiently interested in the thing for that. But he was roused from the kind of stinging lethargy in which he had hitherto sat there, nibbling at one thing or another, oftener playing with his knife and fork, and touching nothing. He laid them down now, and pushed aside his glass, which had been emptied to-night oftener than was his wont.

“You mean to ask,” he said, “if, according to our low French code of morals, we consider it justifiable to commit a crime for the sake of some good to ourselves or others?”

“I don’t go quite that length,” replied Mr. Plover; “but I assume from what you have already said that you look on it as permissible to--tell a lie, for example, under given circumstances.”

“I do,” said Raymond.

There was a murmur of surprise and dissent.

“My dear Bourbonais! you are joking, or talking for the mere sake of argument,” cried Sir Simon, forcing a laugh; but he looked vexed and astonished.

“I am not joking, nor am I arguing for argument’s sake,” protested Raymond with rising warmth. “I say, and I am prepared to prove it, that under given circumstances we are justified in withholding the truth--in telling a lie, if you like that way of putting it better.”

“What are they?”

“Prove it!”

“Let us hear!”

Several spoke together, excited and surprised, and every head was bent towards M. de la Bourbonais. Raymond moved his spectacles, and, fixing his dark gray eyes on Mr. Plover as the one who had directly challenged him, he said:

“Let us take an illustration. Suppose you entrust me with that costly diamond ring upon your finger, I having promised on my oath to carry it to a certain person and to keep its possession a secret. We will suppose that your life and your honor depend on its being delivered at its destination by me and at a given time. On my way thither I meet an assassin, who puts his pistol to my breast and says, ‘Deliver up your purse and a diamond which I understand you have on your person, or I shoot you and take them; but if you give me your word that you have not got it, I will believe you and let you go.’ Am I not justified, in order to save your honor and life and my own in answering, ‘No, I have not got the diamond’?”

“Certainly not!” cried Plover emphatically, bringing his jewelled hand down on the table with a crash.

“My dear sir!…” began some one; but Raymond echoed sharply:

“‘Certainly not!’ Just so. But suppose I draw my pistol and shoot the robber dead on the spot? God and the law absolve me; I have a right to kill any man who threatens my life or my property, or that of my neighbor.”

“You have! Undoubtedly you have!” said two or three, speaking together.

“And yet homicide is a greater sin than a lie!” cried Raymond. He was flushed and excited; his eye sparkled and his hand trembled as he pushed the glasses farther away, and leaned on the table, surveying the company with a glance that had something of triumph and something of defiance in it.

“Well done, Bourbonais!” cried Sir Simon. “You’ve not left Plover an inch of ground to stand on!”

“Closely reasoned,” said Mr. Langrove, with a dubious movement of the head; “but.…”

“Sophistry! a very specious bit of sophistry!” said Mr. Plover in a loud voice, drowning everybody else’s. “Comte and Rousseau and the rest of them in a nutshell.”

“Crack it, then, and let’s have the kernel!” said Lord Roxham. He was growing out of patience with the dictatorial tone of this vulgar man.

“Just so!” chimed in Mr. Charlton, airing a snowy hand and signet gem, and falling back in his chair with the air of a man wearied with hard thinking.

“It’s too preposterous to answer,” was Plover’s evasive taunt; “it’s mere casuistry.”

“A very compact bit of casuistry, at any rate,” said Sir Simon, with friendly pride in Raymond’s manifest superiority over his assembled guests; “it strikes me it would take more than our combined wits to answer it.”

“Egad! I’d eat my head before _I’d_ answer it!” confessed Ponsonby Anwyll, who shared the baronet’s personal complacency in the count’s superior brain. But Raymond had lapsed into his previous silent mood, and sat absently toying with a plate of bonbons before him, and apparently deaf to the clashing of tongues that he had provoked. There was something very touching in his look, in the air of gentle dejection that pervaded him, and which contrasted strikingly with the transient warmth he had displayed while speaking. Sir Simon noticed it, and it smote him to the heart. For the first time this evening he bethought him how his own cheerfulness must strike Raymond, and how he must be puzzled to account for it. He promised himself the pleasure of explaining it to his satisfaction before they parted to-night; but meanwhile it gave him a pang to think of the iron that was in his friend’s soul, though it was part of his pleasant expectation that he would be able to draw it out and pour some healing balm on the wound to-morrow. He would show him why he had borne so patiently with the vulgar pedagogue who had permitted himself to fail, at least by insinuation, in respect to M. de la Bourbonais. The pedagogue meanwhile seemed bent on making himself disagreeable to the inoffensive foreigner.

“It is a pity X---- was not able to secure Count de la Bourbonais as counsel,” he began again. “In the hands of so skilful a casuist his backsliding might have come out quite in a heroic light. It would have been traced to his poverty, which engendered his gratitude, and so on until we had a verdict that would have been virtually a glorification of impecuniosity. It is a pity we have missed the treat.”

“Poverty is no doubt responsible for many backslidings,” said Raymond, bridling imperceptibly. He felt the sting of the remark as addressed to him by the rich man, or he fancied he did. “The world would no doubt be better as well as happier if riches were more equally divided; but there are worse things in the world than poverty, for all that.”

“There is the excess of riches, which is infinitely worse--a more unmitigated source of evil, taking it all in all,” said Mr. Langrove.

“Well said for a professional, my dear sir,” laughed Mr. Plover; “but you won’t find many outsiders to agree with you, I suspect.”

“If by outsiders you mean Turks, Jews, and Hottentots, I daresay you are right,” said the vicar good-temperedly.

“I mean every sensible man who is not bound by his cloth to talk cant--no offence; I use the word technically--you won’t find one such out of a thousand to deny that riches are the best gift of heaven, the one that can buy every other worth having--love and devotion into the bargain.”

“What rank heresy you are propounding, my dear sir!” exclaimed Sir Simon, taking a pinch from his enamelled snuff-box, and passing it on. “You will not find one sane man in a thousand to agree with you!”

“Won’t I though? What do you say, count?”

“I agree with you, monsieur,” said Raymond with a certain asperity; “money can purchase most things worth having, but I deny that it can always pay for them.”

“Ha! there we have the sophist again. It can buy, and yet it can’t pay. Pray explain!”

“What do you mean, Raymond?” said Sir Simon, darting a curious, puzzled look at his friend.

“It is very simple. I mean that money may sometimes enable us to confer an obligation which no money can repay. We may, for instance, do a service or avert a sorrow by means of a sum of money, and thus purchase love and gratitude--things which Mr. Plover has included in those worth having, and which money cannot pay for, though it may be the means of buying them.” The look that accompanied the answer said more to Sir Simon than the words conveyed to any one else. He averted his eyes quickly, and was all at once horrified to discover several empty glasses round the table. They were at dessert now.

“Charlton, have you tried that Madeira? Help yourself again, and pass it on here, will you? I shall have to play Ganymede, and go round pouring out the nectar to you like so many gods, if you don’t bestir yourselves.”

And then there was a clinking of glasses, as the amber and ruby liquid was poured from many a curious flagon into the glistening crystal cups.

“Talking of gods, that’s a god’s eye that you see there on Plover’s finger,” observed Mr. Charlton, whose azure gem was quite eclipsed by the flashing jewel that had suggested M. de la Bourbonais’ illustration. “It was set in the forehead of an Indian idol. Just let Sir Simon look at it; he’s a judge of precious stones,” said the young man, who felt that his feeble personality gained something from the proximity of so big a personage, and was anxious to show him off. The latter complacently drew the ring from his finger and tossed it over to his host. It was a large white diamond of the purest water, without the shadow of a flaw.

“It _is_ a beauty!” exclaimed Sir Simon with the enthusiasm of a connoisseur; “only it’s too good to be worn by a man. It ought to have gone to a beautiful woman when it left the god. I suppose it will soon, eh, Plover?”

Mr. Plover laughed. He was not a marrying man, he said, but he would make no rash vows. Then he went on to tell about other precious stones in his possession. He had some amazingly sensational stories to relate concerning them and how he became possessed of them. We generally interest others when we get on a subject that thoroughly interests ourselves and that we thoroughly understand. Mr. Plover understood a great deal about these legendary gems, and the celebrated idols in which they had figured; he had, moreover, imbibed a certain tinge of Oriental superstition concerning the talismanic properties of precious gems, and invested them, perhaps half unconsciously, with that kind of prestige that is not very far off from worship. This flavor of superstition pierced unawares through his discourse on the qualities and adventures of various rubies and sapphires that had played stirring parts in the destinies of particular gods, and were universally believed to influence for good or evil the lives of mortals who became possessed of them.

The company began to find him less disagreeable as he went on. They did not quite believe in him; but when a story-teller amuses us, we are not apt to quarrel with him for using a traveller’s privilege and drawing the long bow.

By the time this vein was exhausted the party had quite forgiven the obnoxious guest, and admitted him within the sympathetic ring of good-fellowship and conviviality. M. de la Bourbonais had become unusually talkative, and contributed his full share to the ebb and flow of lively repartee. He was generally as abstemious as an anchorite; but to-night he broke through his ascetic habits, and filled and refilled his glass many times. It was deep drinking for him, though for any one else it would have been reckoned moderate. Before the dessert was long on the table the effect of the wine was visible in his excited manner and the shrill tone of his voice, that rose high and sharp above the others in a way that was quite foreign to his gentleness. Sir Simon saw this, and at once divined the cause. It gave him a new pang. Poor Raymond! Driven to this to keep his misery from bursting out and overwhelming him!

“Shall we finish our cigars here or in the library?” asked the baronet when his own tired limbs suggested that a change of posture might be generally agreeable.

As by tacit consent, the chairs were all pushed back and everybody rose. The clock in the hall was striking ten.

“Do you know I think I must be going?” said Mr. Langrove. “Time slips quickly by in pleasant company; I had no idea it was so late!”

“Nonsense! you are not going to leave us yet!” protested Sir Simon. “Don’t mind the clocks here; they’re on wheels.”

“Are they?” said the vicar, and innocently pulled out his watch to compare it with the loud chime that was still trembling in the air. “Humph! I see your wheels are five minutes slower than mine!” he said, with a nod and a laugh at his prevaricating host.

“Come, now, Langrove, never mind the time. ‘Hours were made for slaves,’ you know. Come in and have another cigar,” urged Sir Simon.

But the vicar was firm.

“Then I may as well go with you,” said M. de la Bourbonais; “it’s late already for me to be out.”

Sir Simon was beginning to protest, when his attention was called away by Lord Roxham.

“Have you that diamond ring, Harness?”

“What ring? Plover’s? No; I passed it to you to look at, and it didn’t come round to me again. Can it not be found?”

“Oh! it’s sure to turn up in a minute!” said Mr. Plover. “It has slipped under the edge of a plate, very likely!” And he went to the table and began to look for it.

“Come, let us be going, as we are going,” said M. de la Bourbonais to the vicar, and he went towards the door.

“Wait a bit,” replied Mr. Langrove--“wait a moment, Bourbonais; we must see the end of this.”

“What have we to see in it? It is no concern of ours,” was the slightly impatient rejoinder. Raymond was in that state of unnatural excitement when the least trifle that crosses us chafes and irritates. He had nothing for it, however, but to comply with the vicar’s fancy and wait.

“Most extraordinary!” Sir Simon exclaimed, as crystal dishes and porcelain plates were lifted and moved, and silver filigree baskets overturned and their delicate fruits sent rolling in every direction. “It must have dropped; stand aside, everybody, while I look under the table.” Every one drew off. Sir Simon flung up the ends of the snowy cloth, and, taking a chandelier with several lights, set it on the floor and began carefully to examine the carpet; but the ring was nowhere to be seen.

“If it is here, it is certain to be seen,” he said, still bent down. “Look out, all of you, as you stand; you may see it flash better in the distance.”

But no flash was anywhere visible. The wax-lights discovered nothing brighter than the subdued colors of the rich Persian carpet. Sir Simon went round to the other side of the table, and searched with the same care and the same result.

“You are not an absent man, are you?” he said, lifting the chandelier from the ground, and addressing the owner of the missing ring. “You are not capable of slipping it into your pocket unawares?”

“I never did such a thing in my life; but that is no reason why I may not have done it now. Old wine sometimes plays the deuce with one,” said Mr. Plover, and he began to rummage his pockets and turn their contents on to the table-cloth. Its whiteness threw every article into vivid relief; but there was no ring.

“This is very singular, very extraordinary indeed!” said Sir Simon in a sharp tone of annoyance. “Is any one hoaxing? Charlton, you’re not playing a trick on us, are you?”

“What should I play such a stupid trick as that for?” demanded the young man. “I’m not such an idiot; but here goes! Let us have my pockets on the table too!”

And following his friend’s example, he turned them inside out, coat, waistcoat, and trousers pockets in succession; but no ring appeared.

“It is time we all followed suit,” said Sir Simon, and he cleared a larger space by sweeping away plates and glasses. “I am given to absence of mind myself, and, as you say, I may have taken a glass more than was good for me.”

As he spoke he turned out one pocket after another, with no other result than to show the solidity and unblemished freshness of the linings; there was not a slit or the sign of one anywhere where a diamond ring, or a diamond without a ring, could have slipped through.

“Well, gentlemen, I invite you all to follow my example!” said the host, stepping back from the table, and motioning for any one that liked to advance. His voice had a ring of command in it that would have compelled obedience if that had been necessary; but it did not seem to be so. One after another the guests came up and repeated the operation, while the owner of the ring watched them with a face that grew darker with every disappointment. Mr. Langrove and M. de la Bourbonais were standing somewhat apart from the rest near the door, and were now the only two that remained. The vicar came first. He submitted his pockets to the same rigorous scrutiny, and with the same result. A strange gleam passed over Mr. Plover’s features, as he turned his sallow face in the direction of M. de la Bourbonais. Suspicion and hope had now narrowed to this last trial. Raymond did not move. “Come on, Bourbonais; I have done!” said Mr. Langrove, consigning his spectacles and his handkerchief to his last pocket.

But Raymond remained immovable, as if he were glued to the carpet.

“Come, my dear friend, come!” Sir Simon called out, in a voice that was meant only to be kind and encouraging, but in which those who knew its tones detected a nervous note.

“I will not!” said the count in a sharp, high key. “I will not submit to such an indignity; it has been got up for the purpose of insulting me. I refuse to submit to it!”

He turned to leave the room.

“Raymond, you are mad! You _must_ do it!” cried Sir Simon imperatively.

“I am not mad! I am poor!” retorted the count, facing round and darting eyes of defiance at Sir Simon. “This person, who calls himself a gentleman, has insulted me from the moment I sat down to table with him, and you allowed him to do it. He taunted me with my poverty; he would make out now that because I am poor I am a thief! I have borne with him so far because I was at your table; but there is a limit to what I will bear. I will not submit to the outrage he wants to put upon me.”

Again he turned towards the door.

“You shall hand out my ring before you stir from here, my fine sir!” cried Mr. Plover, taking a stride after him, and stretching out an arm as if to clutch him; but Sir Simon quick as thought intercepted him by laying a hand on the outstretched arm, while Ponsonby Anwyll stepped forward and placed his tall, broad figure like a bulwark between Raymond and his assailant.

“Let me go!” said the latter, shaking himself to get free from the baronet’s clasp; but the long, firm fingers closed on him like grim death.

“You shall not touch M. de la Bourbonais in my presence,” he said; “you have insulted him, as he says, already. If I had seen that he detected what was offensive in your tone and manner, I would not have suffered it to pass. Stand back, and leave me to deal with him!”

“Confound the beggar! Let him give me my ring! I don’t want to touch him; but as I live he doesn’t stir from this room till I’ve seen his breeches pocket turned wrong-side out!”

The man had been drinking heavily, and, though he was still to all intents and purposes sober, this excitement, added to that caused by the wine, heated his blood to boiling-point. He looked as if he would have flown at Raymond; but cowed by Sir Simon’s cool self-command and determined will, he fell back a step, fastening his eyes on Raymond with a savage glare.

Raymond meantime continued obstinate and impracticable. Mr. Langrove took his hand in both his, and in the gentlest way entreated him to desist from his suicidal folly; assuring him that he was the last man present whom any one in his senses would dream of suspecting of a theft, of the faintest approach to anything dishonorable, but that it was sheer madness to refuse to clear himself in the eyes of this stranger. It was a mere form, and meant no more for him than for the rest of them. But Raymond turned a deaf ear to his pleading.

“Let me go! I will not do it! He has been insulting me from the beginning. I will not submit to this,” he repeated, and shook himself free from Mr. Langrove’s friendly grasp.

Sir Simon came close up to him. He was pale and agitated in spite of his affected coolness, and his hand shook as he laid it on Raymond’s shoulder.

“Raymond, for my sake, for God’s sake!” he muttered.

But Raymond thrust away his hand, and said with bitter scorn: “Ha! I am a beggar, and so I must be a thief! No, I will not clear myself! Let this rich man go and proclaim me a thief!” And breaking away from them all, he dashed out of the room.

“Hold! Stop him, or by ---- I’ll make hot work of it for you!” shouted Mr. Plover, making for the door; but Ponsonby Anwyll set his back to it, and defied him to pass. If the other had been brave enough to try, it would have been a hopeless attempt; his attenuated body was no match for the stalwart limbs of the young squire. He involuntarily recoiled as if Ponsonby’s arms, stoutly crossed on his breast, had dealt him a blow. Lord Roxham and Mr. Charlton pressed round him, expostulating and trying to calm him. This was no easy task, and they knew it. They were terribly shaken themselves, and they felt that it was absurd to expect this stranger, fuming for his diamond, to believe that M. de la Bourbonais had not taken it.

“No one but a madman would have done such a thing, when it’s as certain as death to be found out,” said Sir Ponsonby, whose faith in Raymond was sustained by another faith. “Besides, we all know he’s no more capable of it than we are ourselves!”

“Very fine talk, but where is the ring? Who has taken it, if not this Frenchman? I tell you what, he will be making out that it was his right and his duty to steal from a rich man to help a poor one. Perhaps he’s hard up just now, and he blesses Providence for the opportunity.”

“Remember, sir, that you are speaking of a gentleman who is my friend, and whom I know to be incapable of an unworthy action,” said Sir Simon in a stern and haughty tone.

“I compliment you on your friends; it sha’n’t be my fault if you don’t see this one at the hulks before long. But curse me! now I think of it, I’m at your mercy, all of you. I have to depend on you as witnesses, and it seems the fashion in these parts for gentlemen to perjure themselves to screen a friend; you will most likely refuse to swear to facts--if you don’t swear against them, eh?”

“You must be drunk; you don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mr. Charlton, forgetting to drawl, and speaking quickly like a sensible man. “It is as premature as it is absurd to imagine the ring is stolen; it must be in the room, and it must be found.”

“In the room or out of it, it must and it shall be found!” echoed Mr. Plover, “or if not.…”

“If not, it shall be paid for,” added Mr. Charlton; “it shall be replaced.”

“Replaced! All you’re worth could not buy a stone like that one!”

“Not its duplicate as a god’s eye invested with magical virtue,” said Mr. Charlton ironically; “but its value in the market can be paid, I suppose. What price do you put on it?”

“As a mere stone it is worth five hundred pounds to any jeweller in London.”

“Five hundred pounds!” repeated several in chorus with Mr. Charlton.

Sir Simon said nothing. A mist came before his eyes. He saw Raymond in the grip of this cruel man, and he was powerless to release him. If the dread was an act of disloyalty to Raymond, Sir Simon was scarcely to blame. He would have signed away five years of his life that moment to see M. de la Bourbonais cleared of the suspicion that he had so insanely fastened on himself; but how could he help doubting? He knew as no one else knew what the power of the temptation was which had--had it?--goaded him to the mad act. Its madness was the strongest argument against its possibility. To pocket a ring worth five hundred pounds--worth five pounds--in the very teeth of the person it belonged to, and with the clear certainty of being immediately detected--no one in his right mind would have done such a thing. But was Raymond in his right mind when he did it? Had he been in his right mind since he entered the house to-night? There is such a thing as delirium of the heart from sorrow or despair. Then he had been drinking a great deal more than usual, and wine beguiles men to acts of frenzy unawares. If Sir Simon could even say to this man, “I will pay you the five hundred pounds”; but he had not as many pence to call his own. There had been a momentary silence after the exclamation of surprise that followed the announcement of the value of the diamond. Would Mr. Charlton not ratify his offer to pay for it? And if he did not, what could save Raymond?

“Five hundred pounds! You are joking!” said the young man.

“We’ll see whether I am or not! I had the diamond valued with several others at Vienna, where it was set,” said Mr. Plover.

“Consider me your debtor for the amount,” said Sir Ponsonby Anwyll, stepping forward; “if the ring is not found to-night, I will sign you a check for five hundred pounds.”

“Let us begin and look for it in good earnest,” said Lord Roxham. “We will divide; two will go at each side of the table and hunt for it thoroughly. It must have rolled somewhere into a crevice or a corner.”

“I don’t see how a ring was likely to roll on this,” said Mr. Plover, scratching the thick pile of the carpet with the tip of his patent-leather boot.

“Some of us may have kicked it to a distance in pushing back our chairs,” suggested Mr. Langrove; “let us set the lights on the floor, and divide as Lord Roxham proposes.”

Every one seized a chandelier or a lamp and set it on the floor, and began to prosecute the search. They had hardly been two minutes thus engaged when a loud ring was heard, and after a momentary delay the door opened and M. de la Bourbonais walked in.

“Good heavens, Bourbonais! is it you?” cried Sir Simon, rising from his knees and hastening to meet him.

But Raymond, with a haughty gesture, waved him off.

They were all on their feet in a moment, full of wonder and expectation.

“I made a mistake in refusing to submit to the examination you asked of me,” said the count, addressing himself to all collectively. “I was wrong to listen only to personal indignation in the matter; I saw only a poor man insulted by a rich one. I have come back to repair my mistake. See now for yourselves, and, if you like, examine every corner of my clothes.”

He advanced to the table, intending to suit the action to the words, when a burst of derisive laughter was heard at the other end of the room. It was from Mr. Plover. The others were looking on silent and confounded.

“Do you take us all for so many born fools?” cried Mr. Plover, and he laughed again a short, contemptuous laugh that went through Raymond’s veins.

He stood there, his right hand plunged into his pocket in the act of drawing out its contents, but arrested by the sound of that mocking laugh, and by the chill silence that followed. He cast a quick, questioning glance at the surrounding faces; pity, surprise, regret, were variously depicted there, but neither confidence nor congratulation were visible anywhere. A gleam of light shot suddenly through his mind. He drew out his hand and passed it slowly over his forehead.

“My God, have pity on me!” he murmured almost inaudibly, and turned away.

“Raymond! listen to me.” Sir Simon hurried after him.

But the door was closed. Raymond was gone. Sir Simon followed into the hall, but he did not overtake him; the great door closed with a bang, and the friend he loved best on earth was beyond his hearing, rushing wildly on in the darkness and under the rain, that was falling in torrents.

The apparition had come and gone so quickly that the spectators might have doubted whether they had not dreamt it or seen a ghost. No one spoke, until Mr. Plover broke out with a hoarse laugh and an oath:

“If the fellow has not half convinced me of his innocence! He’s too great a fool to be a thief!”

“Until he has been proved a thief, you will be good enough not to apply the term to Monsieur de la Bourbonais under my roof,” said Sir Simon. “Now, gentlemen, we will resume our search.”

They did, and prosecuted it with the utmost care and patience for more than an hour; but the only effect was to fasten suspicion more closely on the absent.

Mr. Plover was so triumphant one would have fancied the justification of his vindictive suspicion was a compensation for the loss of his gem.

“Have you a pen and ink here, or shall I go into the library? I want to write the check,” said Ponsonby.

“You will find everything you want in the library,” said Sir Simon, and Ponsonby went in. Some one rang, and the carriages and horses were ordered. In a few minutes Ponsonby returned with the check, which he handed to Mr. Plover.

“If you require any one to attest my solvency, I dare say Charlton, whom you can trust, will have no objection to do it,” he remarked.

“Certainly not!” said Mr. Charlton promptly.

“Oh! it’s not necessary; I’m quite satisfied with Sir Ponsonby Anwyll’s signature,” Mr. Plover replied. And as he pocketed the check he went to the window and raised the curtain to see if Mr. Charlton’s brougham had come round. The rest of the company were saying good-by, cordial but sad. Sir Simon and the young squire of Rydal stood apart, conversing in an earnest, subdued voice.

“Have you a trap waiting, or shall I drop you at the vicarage?” inquired Lord Roxham of Mr. Langrove.

“Thank you! I shall be very glad,” said the vicar. “The night promised to be so fine I said I would walk home.”

“You will have a wet ride of it, Anwyll; is not that your horse I see?” cried Mr. Charlton from the window, where he had followed his ill-omened friend. “Had you not better leave him here for the night, and let me give you a lift home?”

“Oh! thank you, no; I don’t mind a drenching, and it would take you too far out of your way.”

Mr. Plover and Mr. Charlton were leaving the room when Sir Simon’s voice arrested them.

“One moment, Charlton! Mr. Plover, pray wait a second. I need not assure any one present how deeply distressed I am by what has occurred to-night--distressed on behalf of every one concerned. I know you all share this feeling with me, and I trust you will not refuse me the only alleviation in your power.”

He stopped for a moment, while his hearers turned eager, responsive faces towards him.

“I ask you as a proof of friendship, of personal regard and kindness to myself, to be silent concerning what has happened under my roof to-night; to let it remain buried here amongst ourselves. Will you grant me this, probably the last favor I shall ever ask of you?”

His voice trembled a little; and his friends were touched, though they did not see where the last words pointed.

There was a murmur of assent from all, with one exception.

“Plover, I hope I may include your promise with that of my older friends?” continued the baronet, his voice still betraying emotion. “I have no right, it is true, to claim such an act of self-denial at your hands; I know,” he added with a faint laugh that was not ironical, only sad--“I know that it is a comfort to us all to talk of our misfortunes and complain of them to sympathizing acquaintances; but I appeal to you as a gentleman to forego that satisfaction, in order to save me from a bitter mortification.”

As he spoke, he held out his fine, high-bred hand to his guest.

Sir Simon did not profess to be a very deep reader of human nature, but the most accomplished Macchiavellist could not have divined and touched the right chords in his listener’s spirit with a surer hand than he had just done. Mr. Plover laid his shrivelled fingers in the baronet’s extended hand, and said with awkward bluntness:

“As a proof of personal regard for you, I promise to hold my tongue in private life; but you can’t expect me not to take steps for the recovery of the stone.”

“How so?” Sir Simon started.

“It is pretty certain to get into the diamond market before long, and, unless the police are put on the watch, it will slip out of the country most likely, and for ever beyond my reach, and I would give double the money to get it back again. But I pledge myself not to mention the affair except to the officers.”

He bowed another good-night to the company, and was gone. The rest quickly followed, and soon the noise of wheels crushing the wet gravel died away, and Sir Simon Harness was left alone to meditate on the events of the evening and many other unpleasant things.

TO BE CONTINUED.

RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH.[131]

BY AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ.