“I did not choose to have my secret pumped out of me by Augustus Scarborough.  I can tell you the whole truth now.  Mountjoy Scarborough had told me that he regarded you as affianced to him, and required me to say that I would—­drop you.  You know now how probable that was.  He was drunk on the occasion,—­had made himself purposely drunk, so as to get over all scruples,—­and attacked me with his stick.  Then came a scrimmage, in which he was upset.  A sober man has always the best of it.”  I am afraid that Harry put in that little word sober for a purpose.  The opportunity of declaring that he was sober was too good too be lost.  “I went away and left him, certainly not dead, nor apparently much hurt.  But if I told all this to Augustus Scarborough, your name must have come out.  Now I should not mind.  Now I might tell the truth about you,—­with great pride, if occasion required it.  But I couldn’t do it then.  What would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her?  That was the reason why I told an untruth,—­because I did not choose to fall into the trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid for me.

“If your mother will understand it all, I do not think she will object to me on that score.  If she does quarrel with me, she will only be fighting the Scarborough game, in which I am bound to oppose her.  I am afraid the fact is that she prefers the Scarborough game,—­not because of my sins, but from auld lang syne.

“But Augustus has got hold of my Uncle Prosper, and has done me a terrible injury.  My uncle is a weak man, and has been predisposed against me from other circumstances.  He thinks that I have neglected him, and is willing to believe anything against me.  He has stopped my income,—­two hundred and fifty pounds a year,—­and is going to revenge himself on me by marrying a wife.  It is too absurd, and the proposed wife is aunt of the man whom my sister is going to marry.  It makes such a heap of confusion.  Of course, if he becomes the father of a family I shall be nowhere.  Had I not better take to some profession?  Only what shall I take to?  It is almost too late for the Bar.  I must see you and talk over it all.

“You have commanded me not to write, and now there is a long letter!  It is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb.  But when a man’s character is at stake he feels that he must plead for it.  You won’t be angry with me because I have not done all that you told me?  It was absolutely necessary that I should tell you that I did not mean to ask you to break your engagement, and one word has led to all the others.  There shall be only one other, which means more than all the rest:—­that I am yours, dearest, with all my heart,

“Harry Annesley.”

“There,” he said to himself, as he put the letter into the envelope, “she may think it too long, but I am sure she would not have been pleased had I not written at all.”