_General Wyatt_, with sudden meekness.--"I hope so, sir. But I am not altogether sorry that he has done it. I have not only an explanation but a request to make,--a very great and strange favour to ask,--and I am not sure that I should be able to treat him civilly enough throughout an entire interview to ask it properly." Cummings listens with an air of attentive respect, but makes, to this strange statement, no response other than a look of question, while the General pokes about on the carpet at his feet with the point of his stick for a moment before he brings it resolutely down upon the floor with a thump, and resumes, fiercely again: "Sir, your friend is the victim of an extraordinary resemblance, which is so much more painful to us than we could have made it to him that I have to struggle with my reason to believe that the apology should not come from his side rather than mine. He may feel that we have outraged him, but every look of his, every movement, every tone of his voice, is a mortal wound, a deadly insult to us. He should not live, sir, in the same solar system!" The General deals the floor another stab with his cane, while his eyes burn vindictively upon the mild brown orbs of Cummings, wide open with astonishment. He falters, with returning consciousness of his attitude: "I--I beg your pardon, sir; I am ridiculous." He closes his lips pathetically, and lets fall his head. When he lifts it again, it is to address Cummings with a singular gentleness: "I know that I speak to a gentleman." _Cummings._--"I try to be a good man." _General Wyatt._--"I had formed that idea of you, sir, in the pulpit. Will you do me the great kindness to answer a question, personal to myself, which I must ask?" _Cummings._--"By all means." _General Wyatt._--"You spoke of supposing me still in Paris. Are you aware of any circumstances--painful circumstances--connected with my presence there? Pardon my asking; I wouldn't press you if I could help." _Cummings_, with reluctance.--"I had just heard something about--a letter from a friend"-- _General Wyatt_, bitterly.--"The news has travelled fast. Well, sir, a curious chance--a pitiless caprice of destiny--connects your friend with that miserable story." At Cummings's look of amaze: "Through no fault of his, sir; through no fault of his. Sir, I shall not seem to obtrude my trouble unjustifiably upon you when I tell you how; you will see that it was necessary for me to speak. I am glad you already know something of the affair, and I am sure that you will regard what I have to say with the right feeling of a gentleman,--of, as you say, a good man." _Cummings._--"Whatever you think necessary to say to me shall be sacred. But I hope you won't feel that it is necessary to say anything more. I am confident that when my friend has your assurance from me that what has happened is the result of a distressing association"--