blackguardly manner in
which you acted on the last evening of my stay there. You being Mr
Rimbolt's servant, I had to consider his convenience. I now write to
say that you can spare me the unpleasant duty of informing the Wildtree
household of what a miscreant they have in their midst by doing it
yourself. If, after they know all, they choose to keep you on, there is
nothing more to be said. You are welcome to the chance you will have of
lying in order to whitewash yourself, but either I or you must tell what
we know. Meanwhile I envy you the feelings with which I dare say you
read of the death of poor young Forrester's father in Afghanistan. How
your cowardly crime must have brightened his last hours!

"Yours,--

"E. Scarfe."

Jeffreys pitched this elegant specimen of polite Billingsgate
contemptuously into the grate. He was not much a man of the world, but
he could read through the lines of a poor performance like this.

Scarfe, for some reason or other, did not like to tell the Rimbolts
himself, but he was most anxious they should know, and desired Jeffreys
to do the dirty work himself. There was something almost amusing in the
artlessness of the suggestion, and had the subject been less personally
grievous, Jeffreys could have afforded to scoff at the whole business.

He sat down on the impulse of the moment and dashed off the following
reply:--

"Dear Scarfe,--Would it not be a pity that your sense of duty should not
have the satisfaction of doing its own work, instead of begging me to do
it for you? I may be all you say, but I am not mean enough to rob you
of so priceless a jewel as the good conscience of a man who has done his
duty. So I respectfully decline your invitation, and am,--

"Yours,--

"J. Jeffreys."

Having relieved himself by writing it, he tore the note up, and tried to
forget all about it.

But that was not quite so easy. Scarfe's part in the drama he could not
forget, but the question faced him, not for the first time. Had he any
right to be here, trusted, and by some of the family even respected?
Was he not sailing under false colours, and pretending to be something
he was not?

True, he had been originally engaged as a librarian, a post in which
character was accounted of less importance than scholarship and general
proficiency. But he was more than a librarian now. Circumstances had
made him the mentor and companion of a high-spirited, honest boy. Was
it fair to