r the rest
of it, I thank God I can be taking a hint as ready as the quickest. Your
Grace no doubt has reasons. And I'll make bold to say the inscription
it is your humour to suggest would not be anyway extravagant, for
the twelve years have been painstaking enough, whatever about their
intelligence, of which I must not be the judge myself."

"So far as that goes, sir," said the Duke, "you have been a pattern. And
it is your gifts that make your sins the more heinous; a man of a more
sluggish intelligence might have had the ghost of an excuse for failing
to appreciate the utmost loathsomeness of his sins."

"Oh! by the Lord Harry, if it is to be a sermon--!" cried Simon, jumping
to his feet.

"Keep your chair, sir! keep your chair like a man!" said the Duke. "I am
thinking you know me well enough to believe there is none of the common
moralist about me. I leave the preaching to those with a better conceit
of themselves than I could afford to have of my indifferent self. No
preaching, cousin, no preaching, but just a word among friends, even if
it were only to explain the reason for our separation."

The Chamberlain resumed his chair defiantly and folded his arms.

"I'll be cursed if I see the need for all this preamble," said he; "but
your Grace can fire away. It need never be said that Simon MacTaggart
was feared to account for himself when the need happened."

"Within certain limitations, I daresay that is true," said the Duke.

"I aye liked a tale to come to a brisk conclusion," said the
Chamberlain, with no effort to conceal his impatience.

"This one will be as brisk as I can make it," said his Grace. "Up till
the other day I gave you credit for the virtue you claim--the readiness
to answer for yourself when the need happened. I was under the delusion
that your duel with the Frenchman was the proof of it."

"Oh, damn the Frenchman!" cried the Chamberlain with contempt and
irritation. "I am ready to meet the man again with any arm he chooses."

"With any arm!" said the Duke dryly. "'Tis always well to have a whole
one, and not one with a festering sore, as on the last occasion. Oh
yes," he went on, seeing Simon change colour, "you observe I have
learned about the old wound, and what is more, I know exactly where you
got it."

"Your Grace seems to have trustworthy informants," said the Chamberlain
less boldly, but in no measure abashed. "I got that wound through your
own hand as surely as if you had held