_that_, you know, and proud. We've first-rate traditions. I'm a
younger son, and I've always been a thorn in the family's side. I've
been a sort of vagabond from the first, but never as bad as they
thought or believed."

He paused. His recital was painful to him. Bulstrode waited, then
knocking off the ash from his cigar, urged:

"Tell me about it, tell me frankly; it will, you see, be a relief. We
can do better that way--if I know."

The stranger looked up at him quickly, then leaning forward in his
chair, talked as it were to the carpet, and rapidly:

"It's just a year ago. I'd been going it rather hard and got into
trouble more or less--lost at cards and the races, and been running up
a lot of bills. My father was awfully down on me. I'd gone home for
the holidays and had a talk with my father and asked him to pay up for
me just this once more. He refused, and we got very angry, both of us,
and separated in a rage. The house was full of people--a Christmas
ball and a tree. My father had, so it happened, quite a lot of money
in the house. I knew where it was--I had seen him count it and put it
away. That night for some reason the whole thing sickened me, in the
mess I was in, and I left and went up to London without even saying
good-by. In the course of the week my brother came and found me drunk
in my rooms. It seems that the money had been taken from my father's
safe, and they accused me."

"But," interrupted Bulstrode, eagerly, "it was a simple thing to
exculpate yourself."

Ignoring his remark, the other continued: "I have never seen my father
since that night."

No amount of former deception can persuade a man that he is a lame
judge of character. The young Englishman's emaciated face, where eyes
spoiled by dissipation looked out at his companion, was to this
impulsive reader of humanity a good face. Bulstrode, however, saw what
he wanted to see in most people. Given a chance to study them, or
rather further to know them intimately, he might indeed have ended by
finding in some cases a few of the imagined qualities. Here misery was
evident, degradation as well, timidity, and hesitation,--but honesty?
Bulstrode fancied that its characters were not effaced, and he helped
the recital:

"Since you so left your people?"

"The steady go down!" acknowledged the other. "I worked my passage to
the States on a liner--I stoked..."

"Any chap," encouraged the gentleman, "who can do that ca