e knocked me down, and I confess,"
here he put his hand up to his battered face, "that I am suffering a
good deal, but what I want to say is, that I beg you will not blame
Philip. He thought that I had wronged him, and, though I am quite
innocent, and could easily have cleared myself had he given me a
chance, I must admit that appearances are to a certain extent against
me----"

"He lies!" broke in Philip, sullenly.

"You will wonder, sir," went on the blood-stained George, "how I
allowed myself to be drawn into such a brutal affair, and one so
discreditable to your house. I can only say that I am very sorry,"--
which indeed he was--"and that I should never have taken any notice of
his words--knowing that he would regret them on reflection--had he not
in an unguarded moment allowed himself to taunt me with my birth.
Uncle, you know the misfortune of my father's marriage, and that she
was not his equal in birth, but you know too that she was my mother
and I love her memory though I never saw her, and I could not bear to
hear her spoken of like that, and I struck him. I hope that both you
and he will forgive me; I cannot say any more."

"He lies again, he cannot speak the truth."

"Philip, will you allow me to point out," remarked his father in his
blandest voice, "that the continued repetition of the very ugly word
'lie' is neither narrative nor argument. Perhaps you will be so kind
as to tell me your side of the story; you know I always wish to be
perfectly impartial."

"He lied to you this morning about the money. It's true enough that I
gambled away the ten pounds at Roxham fair, instead of paying it into
the bank as you told me, but he persuaded me to it, and he was to have
shared the profits if we won. I was a blackguard, but he was a bigger
blackguard; why should I have all the blame and have that fellow
continually shoved down my throat as a saint? And so I thrashed him,
and that is all about it."

"Sir, I am sorry to contradict Philip, but indeed he is in error; the
recollection of what took place has escaped him. I could, if
necessary, bring forward evidence--Mr. Bellamy----"

"There is no need, George, for you to continue," and then, fixing his
glittering eye on Philip: "it is very melancholy for me, having only
one son, to know him to be such a brute, such a bearer of false
witness, such an impostor as you are. Do you know that I have just
seen Mr. Bellamy, the head clerk at the bank, and inquired if