ear it well, Calvotti,' he said, taking me by both shoulders, and
looking kindly at me.

'I do not feel my own share much,' I told him truly. 'I am most
aggrieved for the others. It is a terrible business.'

'Give me young Clyde's address. I must bring him to comfort Cecilia when
she learns the truth. She was fond of that poor scapegrace, with all his
faults and follies. He paid bitterly for em'--poor ne'er-do-weel!--very
bitterly.'

'Bitterly, indeed,' I answered absently, looking for a way to escape
from a renewed mention of Clyde's name, and finding none.

'I shall come to see you as often as they'll let me, and stay as long as
I can. But now I must go for the present. Let me see--Clyde's living at
your place, isn't he?'

'Yes,' I answered, 'he was living at the address from which I always
dated.' 'Has he been here to-day?' Oh! It was all too bitter, and I
could endure no longer. I turned my face away. My old patron laid a
gentle hand upon my shoulder, and strove to turn me round. I cast myself
upon the bed, and broke into tears. Gran Dio! I am not ashamed. But that
outbreak cost me bodily agony, and I wept and sobbed whilst I cursed
myself for weeping. Sacred Heaven! how I wrestled with this devil of
weakness, which held me so strongly. When I had fought him down, he
leapt upon me afresh, and subdued me by sheer torture until I let nature
take her way, and cried like a woman! Then, when it was all over, I
stood up and spoke with a new resolve.

'Sir, you are a just man and a wise man, and you shall know the whole
truth. But first you shall swear to me that what I tell you is for ever
buried in your own heart!'

He looked at me with stern inquiry.

'I am not an informer,' he said, 'and you may speak safely.'

I stepped towards him, but he waved me back, and himself took a backward
step.

'There is a reason for my silence, but with you that reason dies. I
have your promise, and I trust it. The man who overthrew me in the lane,
whose hands and face were red with Grammont's blood, was----'

'Go on,' he said, standing there still in rough-hewn dignity, though his
lips trembled and his face was pale.

'That man,' I said, 'was Arthur Clyde.'

'Ah!' The sound escaped him without his knowing it. A minute later he
asked, 'What was the ground of quarrel?'

I told him then the story of Clyde's meeting with Grammont, and of
Arthur's passion afterwards, and of our next encounter with Grammont at
the end of the C