"My dear Alice, you seem to forget everything. Why, Longcluse and I are at deadly feud. He hates me implacably. There never could be anything but enmity between us. Not that I care enough about _him_ to hate him, but I have the worst opinion of him. I have heard the most shocking stories about him lately. They insinuate that he committed a murder! I told you of that jealousy and disappointment, about a girl he was in love with and wanted to marry, and it ended in _murder_! I'm told he had the reputation of being a most unscrupulous villain. They say he was engaged in several conspiracies to pigeon young fellows. He was the utter ruin, they say, of young Thornley, the poor muff who shot himself some years ago; and he was thought to be a principal proprietor of that gaming-house in Vienna, where they found all the apparatus for cheating so cleverly contrived." "But are any of these things proved?" urges Miss Arden. "I don't suppose he would be at large if they were," says Sir Richard, with a smile. "I only know that I believe them." "Well, Dick, you know I reminded you before--you used not to believe those stories till you quarrelled with him." "Why, what do you want, Alice?" he exclaims, looking hard at her. "What on earth can you mean? And what can possibly make you take an interest in the character of such a ruffian?" Alice's face grew pale under his gaze. She cleared her voice and looked down; and then she looked full at him, with burning eyes, and said-- "It is because I am afraid of him, and think he may do you some dreadful injury, unless you are again on terms with him. I can't get it out of my head; and I daresay I am wrong, but I am sure I am miserable." She burst into tears. "Why, you darling little fool, what harm can he do me?" said Richard fondly, throwing his arms about her neck and kissing her, as he laughed tenderly. "He exhausted his utmost malice when he angrily refused to lend me a shilling in my extremity, or to be of the smallest use to me, at a moment when he might have saved me, without risk to himself, by simply willing it. _I_ didn't ask him, you may be sure. An officious, foolish little friend, doing all, of course, for the best, _did_, without once consulting me, or giving me a voice in the matter, until he had effectually put his foot in it, as I told you. I would not for anything on earth have applied to him, I need not tell you; but it was done, and it only shows with what delight he would have seen me ruined, as, in fact, I should have been, had not my own relations taken the matter up. I do believe, Alice, the best thing I could do for myself and for you would be to marry," he says, a little suddenly, after a considerable silence. Alice looks at him, doubtful whether he is serious. "I really mean it. It is the only honest way of making or mending a fortune now-a-days." "Well, Dick, it is time enough to think of that by-and-by, don't you think?"