“I do not come about bills, Mr. Bingham; I come upon a very different matter.” “Ah, indeed; and what may that be?” Mr. Bingham asked, looking up keenly at his visitor, for he saw at once, by his manner, that he had come upon no ordinary business. “I will tell you, Mr. Bingham,” the man said, shortly. “Will you take a seat?” Mr. Bingham put in, more and more surprised, but still bland and tranquil in his manner. “I will not,” Stephen Walker said; “no—not if I never sit down again.” Mr. Bingham said nothing; he still preserved his bland smile, but he felt that it was something very serious now. “You have been to my shop, sir, and you have seen my daughter.” Mr. Bingham made an assenting gesture; but the smile left his face. He guessed somewhat of what was coming. “She was all I had to love in the world, and I did love her with all my heart and soul. She had grown up all I could wish her—tender, loving, happy, and bright. A villain came to the shop—a smiling, smooth-tongued villain—who told her that he loved her, promised to marry her, and who deceived and ruined her; her, so innocent of the world; her, who trusted him as she trusted her God. He married another, and she read it in the paper and went mad—went mad, and even doubted my forgiveness! I, who would have taken her to my heart and comforted her, and pitied her. She went mad, sir; and her body was picked up in the Thames yesterday! The scoundrel who did it was your son, Frederick Bingham!” Mr. Bingham had listened throughout without moving, without changing a muscle. The bland expression had died out from his face; otherwise he manifested no emotion. But all the time Stephen Walker had been speaking his brain had been busily at work. Mr. Bingham was not a very hard-hearted man, but his susceptibilities had been much blunted with long contact with the world; and he was accustomed in his business to what the world calls sharp practice. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have been greatly shocked at the story he had just heard. Perhaps he was now, but the feeling was merged in the more pressing one of actual danger. This man was dangerous. In his present state he was capable of doing any mischief. But what could he do? How would he act? And how could he be met? These thoughts passed rapidly through his mind during the few seconds Stephen Walker was speaking; nor had he determined what course to take, when he was unexpectedly relieved by the entrance of Mrs. Bingham, who, not knowing that her husband was engaged, had opened the door and entered in time to hear the closing sentence of Stephen Walker's speech. As a hen will defend her young ones when attacked by a hawk, so did Mrs. Bingham blaze out in defence of her son. “Oh, you wicked—wicked man! Oh, you bad, abominable person! To come here to say such things against my Freddy, the dearest and best fellow in the world. What does he mean, Richard?” She turned to her husband. “Why don't you give him in charge of the police?”