comfort;--but there was comfort to be
drawn even from that letter, by reason of what it did not contain. The
letter was unfriendly in its tone and peremptory. It had come evidently
from a hostile party. It had none of the feeling which had hitherto
prevailed in the intercourse between these two well-known Conservative
gentlemen, Mr Adolphus Longestaffe and Mr Augustus Melmotte. But there
was no allusion in it to forgery; no question of criminal proceedings;
no hint at aught beyond the not unnatural desire of Mr Longestaffe and
Mr Longestaffe's son to be paid for the property at Pickering which Mr
Melmotte had purchased.

'We have to remind you,' said the letter, in continuation of
paragraphs which had contained simply demands for the money, 'that the
title-deeds were delivered to you on receipt by us of authority to
that effect from the Messrs Longestaffe, father and son, on the
understanding that the purchase-money was to be paid to us by you. We
are informed that the property has been since mortgaged by you. We do
not state this as a fact. But the information, whether true or untrue,
forces upon us the necessity of demanding that you should at once pay
to us the purchase-money,--L80,000,--or else return to us the
title-deeds of the estate.'

This letter, which was signed Slow and Bideawhile, declared positively
that the title-deeds had been given up on authority received by them
from both the Longestaffes,--father and son. Now the accusation brought
against Melmotte, as far as he could as yet understand it, was that he
had forged the signature to the young Mr Longestaffe's letter. Messrs
Slow and Bideawhile were therefore on his side. As to the simple debt,
he cared little comparatively about that. Many fine men were walking
about London who owed large sums of money which they could not pay.

As he was sitting at his solitary dinner this evening,--for both his
wife and daughter had declined to join him, saying that they had dined
early,--news was brought to him that he had been elected for
Westminster. He had beaten Mr Alf by something not much less than a
thousand votes.

It was very much to be member for Westminster. So much had at any rate
been achieved by him who had begun the world without a shilling and
without a friend,--almost without education! Much as he loved money,
and much as he loved the spending of money, and much as he had made and
much as he had spent, no triumph of his life had been so great to h