’It won’t be done by me, Major Tifto.  Look here, Major Tifto, you have come here to confess that you have done me a great injury.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘And you say you are sorry for it.’

‘Indeed I am.’

’And I have forgiven you.  There is only one way in which you can show your gratitude.  Hold your tongue about it.  Let it be as a thing done and gone.  The money has been paid.  The horse has been sold.  The whole thing has gone out of my mind, and I don’t want to have it brought back again.’

‘And nothing is to be done to Green?’

‘I should say nothing,—­on that score.’

’And he has got they say five-and-twenty thousand pounds clear money.’

’It is a pity, but it cannot be helped.  I will have nothing further to do with it.  Of course I cannot bind you, but I have told you my wishes.’  The poor wretch was silent, but still it seemed as though he did not wish to go quite yet.  ’If you have said what you have got to say, Major Tifto, I may as well tell you that my time is engaged.’

‘And must that be all?’

‘What else?’

’I am in such a state of mind, Lord Silverbridge, that it would be satisfaction to tell it all, even against myself.’

‘I can’t prevent you.’

Then Tifto got up from his chair, as though he were going.  ’I wish I knew what I was going to do with myself.’

‘I don’t know that I can help you, Major Tifto.’

’I suppose not, my Lord.  I haven’t twenty pounds left in all the world.  It’s the only thing that wasn’t square that ever I did in all my life.  Your Lordship couldn’t do anything for me?  We was very much together at one time, my Lord.’

‘Yes, Major Tifto, we were.’

’Of course I was a villain.  But it was only once; and your Lordship was so rough with me!  I am not saying but what I was a villain.  Think of what I did for myself by that one piece of wickedness!  Master of Hounds!  Member of the club!  And the horse would have run in my name and won the Leger!  And everybody knew as your Lordship and me was together in him!’ Then he burst out into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing.

The young Lord certainly could not take the man into partnership again, nor could he restore to him either the hounds or his club,—­ or his clean hands.  Nor did he know in what way he could serve the man, except by putting his hand into his pocket,—­which he did.  Tifto accepted the gratuity, and ultimately became an annual pensioner on his former noble partner, living on the allowance made him in some obscure corner of South Wales.

CHAPTER 76

On Deportment