e has
so often heard it. A bad son--dissipated--in perpetual hot water. A
devoted father. Then, one day, a very bad story comes, and the son has
to fly the country. And then, some time afterward, news comes of his
death. Slyme never saw him again. He broods over that, I think; at
least, he has never been the same man since the son, Matthew, left
England. It was all a very unhappy business."

"For the father, perhaps. For the son, he had more than ordinary luck
to die as soon as he did," says Fabian. He does not speak at all
bitterly. Only hopelessly, and without heart or feeling.

"Nobody knows how old Gregory got him out of the country so cleverly,"
says Sir Christopher. "It was a marvel how he managed to elude the grasp
of the law."

"He satisfied the one principal creditor, I suppose?" says Fabian,
indifferently.

"Oh! impossible," says Sir Christopher. "It came to hundreds, you know;
and he hadn't a farthing. Well, good-by; I'm off. Expect me and the
bon-bons about dinner-hour."

He nods to Portia and Julia, who smile at him in return, and, kissing
Dulce, quits the room.

Fabian, following him, goes on to the library; and, having desired one
of the men to send the secretary, Slyme, to him, sits down at one of the
tables and turns over leisurely the pages of accounts that lie there.

After a brief examination, he tells himself impatiently that they are
somewhat muddled, or have, at least, been attended to in a most slovenly
manner. He has just discovered a serious mistake in the row of figures
that adorns the end of the second page, when the door opens slowly, and
Gregory Slyme comes in.

"Wait one moment, Slyme," says Fabian, without looking up from the
figures before him. A moment passes in utter silence. Then Fabian, still
with his eyes upon the account, says, somewhat sharply: "Why, it is
altogether wrong. It has been attended to with extreme carelessness. Did
you, yourself, see to this matter of Younge's?"

He waits, apparently for an answer but none comes. Lifting his eyes he
fixes them scrutinizingly on the old man before him, and having fixed
them, lets them rest there in displeased surprise.

Slyme, beneath this steady gaze, grows visibly uneasy. His eyes shift
uncomfortably from one object in the room to another; his limbs are
unsteady; the hand resting on the table near him is shaking. His face
betrays vacancy mixed with a cunning desire to hide from observation the
heaviness and sluggishness