the good name of his house was this wrong to
be put right, this self-sacrifice to be accomplished. But ere he slept
the honest man gained a victory over the poltroon. Providence had sent
him stumbling into the track. It was not for him to draw back.

Next morning both he and his guardian found letters on the breakfast-
table re-directed in Rosalind's hand from Maxfield. The latter, as he
glanced at his, scowled, and crushed the missive angrily into his
pocket. It was a letter from Ratman, reminding him that a certain bill
was falling due on the following day, and requiring him, on pain of
exposure, to honour it.

Roger's letter was in the same hand. It was dated London, a day or two
back. Ratman said--

"Dear Brother,--I received your letter and enclosure. It is what I
expected from you, but I hope it is not to be the last. I don't wonder
at your suspecting my story--I don't particularly care whether you
believe it or not. No doubt, with your respectable surroundings and the
prospect before you, you are not over-anxious to claim brotherhood with
a fellow of my sort. As long as you believe in me sufficiently not to
leave me in the lurch, I shall be fairly content. But I cannot live on
air, and have little else to support me. Don't be afraid I shall turn
up again now until you want me. If I did, it would be not so much to
see you as to see some one else to whom, rake as I am, I have lost my
heart, and to whom I look to you to put in a good word on my behalf.
You ask for proofs. I can't give you any that I know of. Everything is
changed at Maxfield since I was there. Even the old hands like Dr
Brandram or Hodder would not recognise me after all these years. In
fact, they have seen me and have not done so. They think I'm dead.
That's my fault; for when I was ill in India--goodness knows how many
years ago--with, as I thought, not a day more to live, I told a comrade
to send home news of my death, and they all believed it. So you see it
is easier to talk about proof than give it. The only person who might
be able to remember me after I left home--I had a hideous row with my
father at the time--was a man called Fastnet, with whom I lodged in
London, and who helped to make me the respectable specimen of humanity I
have become. I lost sight of him long since, and for all I know he has
joined the majority with all the others. I merely mention this to show
you how hopeless it is of me to attempt to prove