“Known him! No; but I have often heard my father speak of him. Such, then, was the tragic end of that strong dark creature, for whom, as a young girl in the nursery, I used to feel a kind of fearful admiring interest?” “It is your turn to narrate now,” said the traveller. And we all drew closer round our hostess, who remained silent some moments, her brow thoughtful, her work suspended. “Well,” said she at last, looking round us with a lofty air, which seemed half defying, “force and courage are always fascinating, even when they are quite in the wrong. I go with the world, because the world goes with me; if it did not--” Here she stopped for a moment, clenched the firm white hand, and then scornfully waved it, left the sentence unfinished, and broke into another. “Going with the world, of course we must march over those who stand against it. But when one man stands single-handed against our march, we do not despise him; it is enough to crush. I am very glad I did not see Louis Grayle when I was a girl of sixteen.” Again she paused a moment, and resumed: “Louis Grayle was the only son of a usurer, infamous for the rapacity with which he had acquired enormous wealth. Old Grayle desired to rear his heir as a gentleman; sent him to Eton. Boys are always aristocratic; his birth was soon thrown in his teeth; he was fierce; he struck boys bigger than himself,--fought till he was half killed. My father was at school with him; described him as a tiger-whelp. One day he--still a fag--struck a sixth-form boy. Sixth-form boys do not fight fags; they punish them. Louis Grayle was ordered to hold out his hand to the cane; he received the blow, drew forth his schoolboy knife, and stabbed the punisher. After that, he left Eton. I don’t think he was publicly expelled--too mere a child for that honour--but he was taken or sent away; educated with great care under the first masters at home. When he was of age to enter the University, old Grayle was dead. Louis was sent by his guardians to Cambridge, with acquirements far exceeding the average of young men, and with unlimited command of money. My father was at the same college, and described him again,--haughty, quarrelsome, reckless, handsome, aspiring, brave. Does that kind of creature interest you, my dears?” (appealing to the ladies). “La!” said Miss Brabazon; “a horrid usurer’s son!”