"It is the outraged-brother business, after all," said the Colonel to himself. "This man has found his sister was in the habit of occasionally coming to chambers; perhaps has learned that I occasionally give her money; and he jumps at once to a wrong conclusion." Then looked up and said, "Well, sir!" "You have made my sister a tool for a most dishonourable purpose. You have caused her to aid you in a plot against one of her own sex, her friend, and situated much as she might have been herself." "By Jove," muttered the Colonel beneath his breath, "I was wrong; he is on the other tack!" "I do not presume to understand how you had the audacity----" "Sir!" cried the Colonel. "I repeat the word--the audacity to attempt to induce my sister to become a spy, and something worse than a spy! You must have had greater powers of perception than I gave you credit for to comprehend that you could offer her such a post, and that she would accept it. Of her part in the transaction I have nothing to say, nor indeed of yours so far as she is concerned." "That being the case, Mr.---- Mr.--I beg your pardon--Merton, perhaps we had better bring this interview to an end," said the Colonel, rising to his feet. "I am not going to pick words with you as to the expression which you have chosen to apply to the commission which your sister executed for me. She executed and was paid for it, and there's an end of it." "Not yet," said John Merton. "You don't imagine that I should come here, in the present day, when all these things are taken for granted, to endeavour to wring your conscience by proving to you that you tempted a young girl to do a dishonest, disloyal, and dishonourable act? You don't imagine I am quixotic enough to think that even if you listen to me patiently, what I said to you would have one grain of effect a moment after the door had closed upon me? You don't think I am a missionary from the lower classes come to prate to the upper of decency and honour?" He spoke in a loud high key, his eyes were flashing, and his whole face was lit up with excitement. "What my sister did for you is done and ended so far as she is concerned, and I will not give you the excuse for a smile by telling you that she is sorry for it now, and sees her conduct in a light in which she did not before perceive it. You _do_ smile, and I know why: you think it is easy to profess repentance when the deed has been done and the reward paid. You paid to my sister at various times sums amounting to thirty pounds. In this envelope," laying one on the table, "are three ten-pound notes. So far, Colonel Orpington, we are quits." The Colonel sat still, with his eyes intently fixed on his visitor. As he remained silent, John Merton proceeded: "I wish the other matter could be as easily settled. But in this I meet you on even terms; in the other I come as a suppliant."