iends whose security was esteemed by
accommodators any better than his own. In an evil hour he had learned
that poor Willy had just L1,500 out upon mortgage; and the money-lender,
who was lawyer for the property on which the mortgage was, knew it too.
It was on the interest of this L1,500 that Willy lived, having spent
the rest of his little capital in settling his son as a clerk in a
first-rate commercial house. Charles Haughton went down to shoot at the
house where Willy was a guest-shot with him--drank with him--talked with
him--proved to him, no doubt, that long before the three months were
over the Middlesex property would be sold; the bill taken up, Willy
might trust to his Honour. Willy did trust. Like you, my dear Lionel, he
had not moral courage to say 'No.' Your father, I am certain, meant to
repay him; your father never in cold blood meant to defraud any human
being; but--your father gambled! A debt of honour at piquet preceded the
claim of a bill-discounter. The L1,200 were forestalled--your father was
penniless. The money-lender came upon Willy. Sure that Charles Haughton
would yet redeem his promise, Willy renewed the bill another three
months on usurious terms; those months over, he came to town to find
your father hiding between four walls, unable to stir out for fear of
arrest. Willy had no option but to pay the money; and when your father
knew that it was so paid, and that the usury had swallowed up the whole
of Willy's little capital, then, I say, I saw upon Charles Haughton's
once radiant face the saddest expression I ever saw on mortal man's. And
sure I am that all the joys your father ever knew as a man of pleasure
were not worth the agony and remorse of that moment. I respect your
emotion, Lionel, but you begin as your father began; and if I had not
told you this story, you might have ended as your father ended."

Lionel's face remained covered, and it was only by choking gasps that he
interrupted--the Colonel's narrative. "Certainly," resumed Alban Morley,
in a reflective tone "certainly that villain--I mean William Losely,
for villain he afterwards proved to be--had the sweetest, most forgiving
temper! He might have gone about to his kinsmen and friends denouncing
Charles Haughton, and saying by what solemn promises he had been undone.
But no! such a story just at that moment would have crushed Charles
Haughton's last chance of ever holding up his head again, and Charles
told me (for it was throu