“You will oblige me, then,” went on Dick, with very cold courtesy, “by arranging with Mr. Reynolds the income which you would wish to have paid to you”--he paused a little before he went on with some emphasis--“in consideration, not of your past, but of your present services.” John Bradfield winced; but he submitted like a lamb to be awarded a handsome pension in consideration of the fact that he had had to disgorge the remains of the property he had stolen. As soon as they decently could, both Mr. Reynolds and Richard left him. When they were in the hall, lawyer and client looked at each other. “Well,” said Mr. Reynolds, as he prepared to leave the house in company with Dick, “I’ve met some rogues in my time, but----” “I prefer to think,” said Dick, gravely, “that he has tried so long to believe that I was insane that the forced belief has injured his own brain.” “Very kind of you to put it like that. You forgive him then?” The answer came, short and sharp: “No. You can’t forgive the man who has robbed you of seventeen years of life, and youth, and hope. If I had forgiven him, I should not have insulted the cur by offering him a pension.” The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t understand the world, Mr. Wryde. Nobody minds such an insult as that.” “It’s a satisfaction to me, at all events,” answered Richard, simply. But he would not have been so magnanimous if he had not known that Chris was waiting to meet him in the meadow by the barn. Later in the day Mr. Bradfield came across Stelfox, who was enjoying the victory he had been the means of bringing about too greatly to leave the scene of it with undue haste. His late master, who had recovered his spirits a little, addressed him, with some abruptness, in the following manner: “Stelfox, you’re a scoundrel.” “Thank you, sir,” answered the man as quietly as ever. “If I hadn’t been a bit of a rogue myself,” he went on thoughtfully, “perhaps, sir, I shouldn’t have been so successful in bringing another rogue to book.” For one moment Mr. Bradfield seemed disposed to kick him, but he refrained, and laughed instead, with some constraint, however. The remark had to be treated as a joke, though it could not be made to pass for a palatable one. “Now, why,” pursued he, with an appearance of sincere regret, “did you not either let me know that you believed Mr. Richard to be recovering, or else let him escape much sooner than you did?”