, sir,
not that way!--this." And the Colonel opened the glass door that led
into the garden. "I will let you out this way. If Mrs. Pompley should
see you!" And with that thought the Colonel absolutely hooked his arm
into his poor relation's, and hurried him into the garden.

Mr. Digby said not a word, but he struggled ineffectually to escape from
the Colonel's arm; and his color went and came, came and went, with a
quickness that showed that in those shrunken veins there were still some
drops of a soldier's blood.

But the Colonel had now reached a little postern-door in the garden
wall. He opened the latch, and thrust out his poor cousin. Then looking
down the lane, which was long, straight, and narrow, and seeing it was
quite solitary, his eye fell upon the forlorn man, and remorse shot
through his heart. For a moment the hardest of all kinds of avarice,
that of the _genteel_, relaxed its gripe. For a moment the most
intolerant of all forms of pride, that which is based upon false
pretences, hushed its voice, and the Colonel hastily drew out his purse.
"There," said he--"that is all I can do for you. Do leave the town as
quick as you can, and don't mention your name to any one. Your father
was such a respectable man--beneficed clergyman!"

"And paid for your commission, Mr. Pompley. My name!--I am not ashamed
of it. But do not fear I shall claim your relationship. No; I am ashamed
of _you_!"

The poor cousin put aside the purse, still stretched towards him, with a
scornful hand, and walked firmly down the lane.

Colonel Pompley stood irresolute. At that moment a window in his house
was thrown open. He heard the noise, turned round, and saw his wife
looking out.

Colonel Pompley sneaked back through the shrubbery, hiding himself
amongst the trees.

CHAPTER X.

"Ill-luck is a _betise_," said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and on the
long run, I fear, his eminence was right. If you could drop Dick Avenel
and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxford-street--Dick in a fustian jacket,
Digby in a suit of superfine--Dick with five shillings in his pocket,
Digby with a thousand pounds--and if, at the end of ten years, you
looked up your two men, Dick would be on his road to a fortune,
Digby--what we have seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink,
nor gamble. What was he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son--a
spoiled child--brought up as a "gentleman;" that is, as a man who was
not expected to be able to turn