“Why, you villain, these have all been paid.  What! six pounds for the dinner!  Why Brigson collected the subscriptions to pay for it before it took place.”

“That’s now’t to me, sir.  He never paid me; and as you was the young gen’lman in the cheer, I comes to you.”

Now Eric knew for the first time what Brigson had meant by his threatened revenge.  He saw at once that the man had been put up to act in this way by some one, and had little doubt that Brigson was the instigator.  Perhaps it might be even true, as the man said, that he had never received the money.  Brigson was quite wicked enough to have embezzled it for his own purposes.

“Go,” he said to the man; “you shall have the money in a week.”

“And mind it bean’t more nor a week.  I don’t chuse to wait for my money no more,” said Billy, impudently, as he retired with an undisguised chuckle, which very nearly made Eric kick him down stairs.

What was to be done?  To mention the subject to Owen or Montagu, who were best capable of advising him, would have been to renew the memory of unpleasant incidents, which he was most anxious to obliterate from the memory of all.  He had not the moral courage to face the natural consequences of his past misconduct, and was now ashamed to speak of what he had not then been ashamed to do.  He told Graham and Wildney, who were the best of his old associates, and they at once agreed that they ought to be responsible for at least a share of the debt.  Still, between them they could only muster three pounds out of the six which were required, and the week had half elapsed before there seemed any prospect of extrication from the difficulty; so Eric daily grew more miserable and dejected.

A happy thought struck him.  He would go and explain the source of his trouble to Mr. Rose, his oldest, his kindest, his wisest friend.  To him he could speak without scruple and without reserve, and from him he knew that he would receive nothing but the noblest advice and the warmest sympathy.

He went to him after prayers that night, and told his story.

“Ah, Eric, Eric!” said Mr. Rose; “you see, my boy, that sin and punishment are twins.”

“O but, sir, I was just striving so hard to amend, and it seems cruel that I should receive at once so sad a check.”

“There is only one way that I see, Eric.  You must write home for the money, and confess the truth to them honestly, as you have to me.”

It was a hard course for Eric’s proud and loving heart to write and tell his aunt the full extent of his guilt.  But he did it faithfully, extenuating nothing, and entreating her, as she loved him, to send the money by return of post.

It came, and with it a letter full of deep and gentle affection.  Mrs. Trevor knew her nephew’s character, and did not add by reproaches to the bitterness which she perceived he had endured; she simply sent him the money, and told him, that in spite of his many failures, “she still had perfect confidence in the true heart of her dear boy.”