ant of
the feelings of those who engage in them, and of the rules of honor by
which they are guided; but this I know, that the man whom his equals
decline to associate with at home is not recognizable abroad; and that
he who leaves his country with shame, cannot reside away from it with
credit."

"This would be a very rude speech, Sir Stafford Onslow, even with the
palliative preface of your ignorance, if our relative ages admitted any
equality between us. I am the least bellicose of men, I believe I can
say I may afford to be so. So long, therefore, as you confine such
sentiments to yourself, I will never complain of them; but if the time
comes that you conceive they should be issued for general circulation--"

"Well, my Lord, what then?"

"Your son must answer for it, that's all!" said Norwood; and he drew
himself up, and fixed his eye steadily on the distant wall of the room,
with a look and gesture that made the old man sick at heart. Norwood saw
how "his shot told," and, turning hastily round, said: "This interview,
I conclude, has lasted quite long enough for either of us. If you have
any further explanations to seek for, let them come through a younger
man, and in a more regular form. Good-morning."

Sir Stafford bowed, without speaking, as the other passed out.

To have seen them both at that moment, few would have guessed aright on
which side lay all the disgrace, and where the spirit of rectitude and
honor.

Sir Stafford, indeed, was most miserable. If the Viscount's mock
explanations did not satisfy a single scruple of his mind, was it not
possible they might have sufficed with others more conversant with such
matters? Perhaps he is not worse than others of his own class. What
would be his feelings if he were to involve George in a quarrel for
such a cause? This was a consideration that pressed itself in twenty
different forms, each of them enough to appall him. "But the man is
a defaulter; he has fled from England with 'shame,'" was the stubborn
conviction which no efforts of his casuistry could banish; and the more
he reflected on this, the less possible seemed anything like evasion or
compromise.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE END OF THE FIRST ACT

THE point discussed in our last chapter, if not a momentous one in
itself, was destined to exercise a very important influence upon the
fortunes of the Onslow family. The interview between Sir Stafford and
the Viscount scarcely occupied five minutes; after w