He went on to say, that about the time when things were at the worst with him, he had stumbled upon Harding Knowles; they had been contemporaries at Oxford, and rather intimate. Harding did not appear to rejoice much at the encounter; though he must have guessed at the first glance the strait to which his old acquaintance was reduced, he made no offer of prompt assistance, but asked for Crichton's address, expressing vague hopes of being able to do something for him; Hugh gave it with great reluctance, and only under a solemn promise of secrecy. He did not the least expect that Knowles would remember him, and was greatly surprised when the latter called some five or six weeks afterwards. Harding's tone was much more cordial than it had been at their first meeting; he seemed really sorry at having failed, so far, in finding anything that would suit Crichton, and actually pressed him to borrow £10--or more if it was required--to meet present emergencies. An instinctive suspicion almost made Hugh refuse the loan; he felt as if he would rather be indebted to any man alive than to the person who offered it; but he was so fearfully "hard up" that he had not the courage to decline. Knowles came again and again, with no ostensible object except cheering his friend's solitude, and each time was ready to open his purse. "We must get you something before long, and then you can repay me," he would say. Crichton availed himself of these offers more than once, moderately; he began to think that he had done his benefactor great injustice, and looked for his visits eagerly; indeed, few _causeurs_, when he chose to exert himself, could talk more pleasantly than Knowles. One evening the conversation turned, apparently by chance, to old memories of college days. "That was the best managed thing we ever brought off," Harding said at last, "when we made Alick Drummond carry on a regular correspondence with a foreign lady of the highest rank, who was madly in love with him. How did we christen the Countess? I forget. But I remember the letters you wrote for her; the delicate feminine character was the most perfect thing I ever saw. Have you lost that talent of imitating handwriting? It must have been a natural gift; I never saw it equalled." "Write down a sentence or two," Hugh replied; "I'll show you if I have lost the knack." He copied them out on two similar sheets of paper, and gave the three to Knowles after confusing them under the table: the latter actually started, and the admiration that he displayed was quite sincere: the _fac similes_, indeed, were so miraculously like the original, that it was next to impossible to distinguish them. "I can guess what is coming," Alan whispered softly, seeing the speaker pause. "Go on straight and quick to the end, for God's love, and keep nothing back. Don't look at me."