s, and constitute your lordship the trustee of the amount in favour of
his daughter, the sum only to be paid on her marriage.'

'How can it possibly concern me that he has a daughter, or why should I
accept such a trust?'

'The proposition had no other meaning than to guarantee the good faith on
which his demand is made.'

'I don't believe in the daughter.'

'That is, that there is one?'

'No. I am persuaded that she has no existence. It is some question of a
mistress or a dependant; and if so, the sentimentality, which would seem to
have appealed so forcibly to you, fails at once.'

'That is quite true, my lord; and I cannot pretend to deny the weakness you
accuse me of. There may be no daughter in the question.'

'Ah! You begin to perceive now that you surrendered your convictions too
easily, Atlee. You failed in that element of "restless distrust" that
Talleyrand used to call the temper of the diplomatist.'

'It is not the first time I have had to feel I am your lordship's
inferior.'

'_My_ education was not made in a day, Atlee. It need be no discouragement
to you that you are not as long-sighted as I am. No, no; rely upon it,
there is no daughter in the case.'

'With that conviction, my lord, what is easier than to make your adhesion
to his terms conditional on his truth? You agree, if his statement be in
all respects verified.'

'Which implies that it is of the least consequence to me whether the fellow
has a daughter or not?'

'It is so only as the guarantee of the man's veracity.'

'And shall I give ten thousand pounds to test _that?_'

'No, my lord; but to repossess yourself of what, in very doubtful hands,
might prove a great scandal and a great disaster.'

'Ten thousand pounds! ten thousand pounds!'

'Why not eight--perhaps five? I have not your lordship's great knowledge to
guide me, and I cannot tell when these men really mean to maintain their
ground. From my own very meagre experiences, I should say he was not a very
tractable individual. He sees some promise of better fortune before him,
and like a genuine gambler--as I hear he is--he determines to back his
luck.'

'Ten thousand pounds!' muttered the other, below his breath.

'As regards the money, my lord, I take it that these same papers were
documents which more or less concerned the public service--they were in no
sense personal, although meant to be private; and, although in my ignorance
I may be mistaken, it seems to me that t