"I can't understand it," said he; "Bob certainly had that money coming to him from his last year's salary, for he told me about it the day we first met in Philadelphia. If Bob isn't a man of honor, in the strictest sense of the term, I never was so deceived in anybody in my life. And yet this business looks as ugly as home-made sin. Bob knew perfectly well that if you or I had been at home when he left we wouldn't have allowed his protested draft to stand over at all, but would have paid it on the spot. He knew too that if he couldn't pay when he promised he could have written to me or to you explaining the matter, and we would have lent him the money for twenty years if necessary. I don't understand it at all. It looks ugly. It looks as if he meant to make that money clear." "Well, my son," said Col. Barksdale, "I'll give him one chance to explain at any rate. I'll write to him immediately." Accordingly the old gentleman went to his library and was engaged for some time in writing. After awhile there came a knock at his door, and Miss Sudie entered. "Come in, daughter," said he, tenderly. "I want to talk with you." "I thought you would," said the sad-eyed little maiden, "and that's why I came. I wanted our talk to be private." "You're a good girl, my child." Then, after a pause, "This is bad news about Robert." "Yes; and from a bad source," said Sudie. "I do not understand you, daughter." "We have the best of authority, Uncle Carter, for saying that 'men do not gather grapes of thorns!'" "But, my child, I suppose there can be no doubt of the facts in this case, so far as we have them. We know the circumstances of Robert's indebtedness to Edwin, and whatever her motives may have been, Sarah Ann would hardly venture to say that he has neither paid nor written in explanation of his failure to do so, if he had done either." "Perhaps not." "Robert ought to have paid at any cost to himself if it were possible; and if it were not, then he should have written in a frank, manly way, explaining his inability to fulfill his promise. Appearances are so strongly against him that I have written with very little hope of eliciting any satisfactory reply." "Will you mind letting me see what you have written, Uncle Carter?" "No; you may read the letter. Here it is." Miss Sudie read it. It ran thus: