“Oh, it is,” said my father. “It is. Do you remember those beautiful words of David’s, ‘the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked’?” “Not only do I remember them,” I said, “but had you not quoted them, I should certainly have done so myself.” “We’ll wash them to-night,” said my father. “Put on your cap. No, it would perhaps be better to wear your bowler,” and five minutes later we were standing once more on the front-door step of Hopkinson House. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII Second interview with Mr. Septimus Lorton. But now the tables are turned. A pitiful exhibition. My father demands guarantees. He will write a letter to Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton. My father’s ordeal. When it was dark. SAVE that it became the means so strangely selected for my early entrance into Xtian commerce, I do not propose to linger over the comparatively brief but effective interview that ensued. At first refused admission, the words Greenwich Park sent as a message by the servant sufficed to bring Mr. Lorton hastily but reluctantly and unaccompanied to the front door. From there he conveyed us to one of the smaller and more distant schoolrooms, and it soon became obvious, in spite of his tentative denials, and even more despicable evasions, that my father and myself were the complete masters of the situation. It was true, of course, that he tried to temporize with the pathetic bravado of the exposed sinner. “But even if it were the case,” he said, “which I am not prepared to admit, that I was in Greenwich Park with Mrs. Chrysostom, do you suppose that, were I to deny it, my brother would believe you for a moment?” Fulfilled as he was with a Xtian indignation, my father was unable to suppress a smile. “I imagine that at least,” he said, “he would be interested in my son’s knowledge that she was supposed to be shopping in Kensington.” Mr. Septimus Lorton protruded the tip of his tongue in a vain endeavour to moisten his lips. “And he would also be interested,” I said, “to meet the lame newspaper-seller from whom she obtained change for ten shillings.” My father nodded. “That cannot often happen,” he said, “and my son tells me that the man picked up one of her gloves.” “Yes,” I said, “and followed her into the station with it, where she gave him a sixpence, and he called her a pretty lady.” My father looked thoughtfully at the tips of his fingers. “From which I infer,” he said, “that he could probably identify her.” Mr. Lorton passed one of his hands over the pale green surface of his cheek. “But, my dear sir,” he said, “my dear sir, even suppose, I say, that without—er—prejudice, Mrs. Chrysostom had so far honoured me as to accompany me for a walk in the park you mention, surely that is not necessarily an indiscreet act in view of the fact that I am her husband’s brother.”