ough the money was paid eventually, what
would you have thought of me what would the world have thought of him if
I had written such an epistle as this?"

And as he spoke, his voice and manner warmed into a degree of indignant
anger, in which, as if carried away, he snatched the letter from the
chimney-piece and threw it into the fire. The act was unseen by Sir
Stafford, who sat with his head deeply buried between his hands, a low
faint groan alone bespeaking the secret agony of his heart.

"My son has, then, paid you? He owes nothing, my Lord?" said he, at
last, looking up, with a countenance furrowed by agitation.

"Like a trump!" said Norwood, assuming the most easy and self-satisfied
manner. "My life upon George Onslow! Back him to any amount, and against
the field anywhere! A true John Bull! no humbug, no nonsense about him!
straightforward and honorable, always!"

"Your position is, then, this, my Lord," said Sir Stafford, whose
impatience would not permit him to listen longer, "you have quitted
England, leaving for future settlement a number of debts, for which you
have not the remotest prospect of liquidation."

"Too fast, you go too fast!" said the Viscount, laughing.

"Lord Effingdale writes the amount at thirty thousand pounds, and adds
that, as a defaulter--"

"There's the whole of it," broke in Norwood. "You ring the changes
about that one confounded word, and there is no use in attempting a
vindication. 'Give a dog a bad name,' as the adage says. Now, I took the
trouble this very morning to go over the whole of this tiresome business
with George. I explained to him fully, and, I hope, to his entire
satisfaction, that I was simply unfortunate in it, nothing more. A man
cannot always 'ride the winner; 'I 'm sure I wish _I_ could. Of course,
I don't mean to say that it 's not a confounded 'bore' to come out here
and live in such a place as this, and just at the opening of the season,
too, when town is beginning to fill; but 'needs must,' we are told,
'when a certain gent sits on the coach-box.'"

Sir Stafford stood, during the whole of this speech, with his arms
folded and his eyes fixed upon the floor. He never heard one word of
it, but was deeply intent upon his own thoughts. At length he spoke in
a full, collected, and firm voice: "Lord Norwood I am, as you have told
me, perfectly unfitted to pronounce upon transactions so very unlike
every pursuit in which my life has been passed. I am alike ignor