ho stood with folded arms, and looked down on him with lowering brow and
the deep indignation of the just, and yet with haughty triumph.

That eloquent look was a revelation to Monckton.

"Ah," he cried, "it was _you_."

Hope's only reply was this: "You double felon, false accuser and thief,
you are caught in your own trap."

And this he thundered at him with such sudden power that the thief went
cringing out, and even those who remained were awed. But Hope never told
anybody except Walter Clifford that he had undone Monckton's work in the
lobby; and then the poor boy fell upon his neck, and kissed his hand.

To run forward a little: Monckton was tried, and made no defense. He
dared not call Hope as his witness, for it was clear Hope must have seen
him commit the theft and attempt the other villainy. But the false
accusation leaked out as well as the theft. A previous conviction was
proved, and the indignant judge gave him fourteen years.

Thus was Bartley's fatal secret in mortal peril on the day it first
existed; yet on that very day it was saved from exposure, and buried deep
in a jail.

Bartley set Hope over his business, and was never heard of for months.
Then he turned up in Sussex with a little girl, who had been saved from
diphtheria by tracheotomy, and some unknown quack.

There was a scar to prove it. The tender parent pointed it out
triumphantly, and railed at the regular practitioners of medicine.

CHAPTER IV.

AN OLD SERVANT.

Walter Clifford returned home pretty well weaned from trade, and anxious
to propitiate his father, but well aware that on his way to
reconciliation he must pass through jobation.

He slipped into Clifford Hall at night, and commenced his approaches by
going to the butler's pantry. Here he was safe, and knew it; a faithful
old butler of the antique and provincial breed is apt to be more
unreasonably paternal than Pater himself.

To this worthy, then, Walter owed a good bed, a good supper, and good
advice: "Better not tackle him till I have had a word with him first."

Next morning this worthy butler, who for seven years had been a very good
servant, and for the next seven years rather a bad one, and would now
have been a hard master if the Colonel had not been too great a Tartar to
stand it, appeared before his superior with an air slightly respectful,
slightly aggressive, and very dogged.

"There is a young gentleman would be glad to speak to you, if you
will