“As far as I can tell, none.  That man Pratt knew that he had not done so yesterday afternoon.  I asked him what were the intentions of his blackguard friend, and he said that he did not know—­that Crosbie would probably have written to me.  Then he brought me this letter.  There it is,” and the squire threw the letter over the table; “read it and let me have it back.  He thinks probably that the trouble is now over as far as he is concerned.”

It was a vile letter to have written—­not because the language was bad, or the mode of expression unfeeling, or the facts falsely stated—­but because the thing to be told was in itself so vile.  There are deeds which will not bear a gloss,—­sins as to which the perpetrator cannot speak otherwise than as a reptile; circumstances which change a man and put upon him the worthlessness of vermin.  Crosbie had struggled hard to write it, going home to do it after his last interview on that night with Pratt.  But he had sat moodily in his chair at his lodgings, unable to take the pen in his hand.  Pratt was to come to him at his office on the following morning, and he went to bed resolving that he would write it at his desk.  On the next day Pratt was there before a word of it had been written.

“I can’t stand this kind of thing,” said Pratt.  “If you mean me to take it, you must write it at once.”  Then, with inward groaning, Crosbie sat himself at his table, and the words at last were forthcoming.  Such words as they were!  “I know that I can have no excuse to make to you,—­or to her.  But, circumstanced as I now am, the truth is the best.  I feel that I should not make Miss Dale happy; and, therefore, as an honest man, I think I best do my duty by relinquishing the honour which she and you had proposed for me.”  There was more of it, but we all know of what words such letters are composed, and how men write when they feel themselves constrained to write as reptiles.

“As an honest man!” repeated the squire.  “On my honour, Bernard, as a gentleman, I do not understand it.  I cannot believe it possible that the man who wrote that letter was sitting the other day as a guest at my table.”

“What are we to do to him?” said Bernard, after a while.

“Treat him as you would a rat.  Throw your stick at him, if he comes under your feet; but beware, above all things, that he does not get into your house.  That is too late for us now.”

“There must be more than that, uncle.”

“I don’t know what more.  There are deeds for committing which a man is doubly damned, because he has screened himself from overt punishment by the nature of his own villainy.  We have to remember Lily’s name, and do what may best tend to her comfort.  Poor girl! poor girl!”

Then they were silent, till the squire rose and took his bed candle.  “Bernard,” he said, “let my sister-in-law know early to-morrow that I will see her here, if she will be good enough to come to me after breakfast.  Do not have anything else said at the Small House.  It may be that he has written to-day.”