d them both freely in my letters, and had sent little things
through his hand to both of them now and then. My old patron, Mr.
Gregory, had given Arthur two or three commissions, and one of his works
had been hung on the line at Burlirgton House, side by side with mine.
In his old, frank, charming way he said--

'If those old buffers on the committee had laid their heads together to
please me, they couldn't have done it more successfully than by hanging
me next to you, old man. When I went in and saw it there, I was better
pleased at being next to you than I was at being on the line. I'm
painting Gregory's portrait for next' year--a splendid subject, isn't
it?'

I took him to walk that morning to the scene I had painted in the work
he spoke of,' He recognised it with enthusiasm, and we walked back
together full of friendship and enjoyment. He had one or two commissions
for Charles Grammont from his sisters, and asked me to help in finding
him. When I learned that the young Englishman was living in the Basso
Porto I was amazed, and when Clyde saw the place he was amazed also.

'Has he got through all his money already,' Arthur asked me, 'that he
lives in a hole like this?'

'I am told,' I said, 'that he has become a miser, spending money on
nothing but drink, and living in a continuous sullen debauchery.'

Clyde faced round upon me as we stood in the doorway of the house
together.

'I haven't seen the fellow for years,' he exclaimed, 'but can you fancy
such an animal being a brother of Cecilia's?'

'Odd, isn't it?' said an English voice from the darkness of the stairs.
'Infernally odd!'

And Charles Grammont, bearded, bloated, unclean, unwholesome, stepped
into the sunlight and poisoned it.

'Who is this fellow?' asked Arthur quietly.

'Charles Grammont,' I answered.

'Charles Grammont?' he repeated; and then, hastening to obliterate the
memory of his unlucky speech, he plunged into an explanation of his
concerns with Grammont, and I withdrew a little. But in a moment I heard
Grammont's voice raised in high anger.

'And what brings Arthur Clyde acting as my sister's messenger? Could
they find nobody but a ------'

If I should repeat here on paper the epithets the man used, I should
be almost as great a blackguard as he was to use them. They were words
abominable and horrible. I know by my anger at them now--then I had no
time to feel for myself--that if a man had used them to me, and I had
held a weapon