rely a
nominal or what I believe is called a 'sleeping' partner. He had long
ceased to reside in the county. The old house was not grand enough for
him. He had purchased a palatial residence in one of the home counties;
lived there in great splendour; was a munificent patron of science
and art; and in spite of his earlier addictions to business-like
speculations he appears to have been a singularly accomplished,
high-bred gentleman. Some years before his son's marriage, Mr. Fletwode
had been afflicted with partial paralysis, and his medical attendant
enjoined rigid abstention from business. From that time he never
interfered with his son's management of the bank. He had an only
daughter, much younger than Alfred. Lord Eagleton, my mother's brother,
was engaged to be married to her. The wedding-day was fixed,--when the
world was startled by the news that the great firm of Fletwode and Son
had stopped payment; is that the right phrase?"

"I believe so."

"A great many people were ruined in that failure. The public indignation
was very great. Of course all the Fletwode property went to the
creditors. Old Mr. Fletwode was legally acquitted of all other offence
than that of overconfidence in his son. Alfred was convicted of
fraud,--of forgery. I don't, of course, know the particulars, they are
very complicated. He was sentenced to a long term of servitude, but
died the day he was condemned; apparently by poison, which he had long
secreted about his person. Now you can understand why my father, who
is almost gratuitously sensitive on the point of honour, removed into a
dark corner the portrait of Arabella Fletwode,--his own ancestress, but
also the ancestress of a convicted felon: you can understand why the
whole subject is so painful to him. His wife's brother was to have
married the felon's sister; and though, of course, that marriage was
tacitly broken off by the terrible disgrace that had befallen the
Fletwodes, yet I don't think my poor uncle ever recovered the blow to
his hopes. He went abroad, and died in Madeira of a slow decline."

"And the felon's sister, did she die too?"

"No; not that I know of. Mrs. Campion says that she saw in a newspaper
the announcement of old Mr. Fletwode's death, and a paragraph to the
effect that after that event Miss Fletwode had sailed from Liverpool to
New York."

"Alfred Fletwode's wife went back, of course, to her family?"

"Alas! no,--poor thing! She had not been many months m