The Doctor had indeed come upon no light errand. He had come to tell the wretched father that his son Wilfred’s character was altogether cleared, and his innocence established beyond a doubt; and, in addition, that the real culprit was no other than the Honourable Augustus Cubleigh. The distress of the Squire on the receipt of this intelligence was extreme, and at first he almost seemed to be taking leave of his senses. He would listen to no extenuation of, or excuses for, the miserable part Dr. Massenger had played in the matter, and he overwhelmed that learned person with the most cutting reproaches, which the private tutor could not but feel to be richly deserved. Deep down in the Doctor’s nature, howsoever much it was overlaid by pomposity and the propensity to truckling and tuft-hunting, there was a vein of honesty and some sense of justice, and the man who had so large a share in wrecking a young life could not find it in his heart to resent or reply to the abuse which was heaped upon him by the unhappy father. At length he took his leave, and Mr. Manwaring was left alone to regret the irremediable past, and to brood over a crime which could never be repaired. Now, too late, his eyes were opened. He himself it was, not his son, who was the “Disgrace of the Family.” He it was, not his son, who had sullied the Family Honour, by giving ear to baseless and idle reports that a Manwaring was a common thief. He it was, who, instead of jealously guarding the honour of one who bore his name, had, without inquiry, let himself be the dupe of a Germanised nobody, and had made his own son the victim of a mere _parvenu_, whose grandfather was a money-lender on a second floor in a small street off the Strand. Yes, Wilfred was innocent; his soul was as white as snow; and, driven from his home, Wilfred had disappeared! The wretched old man saw it all now. Too late, too late! It was the white innocence of his boy’s soul, it was his chivalrous sense of honour, that could not brook falsehood and injustice; it was the delicate sensitiveness of the true Gentleman which had led the youth to revolt against the search for stolen goods amongst his property. It was an indignant protest against a shameful charge, which, when once he was repulsed, led him rather to suffer in silence than to condescend to reply or to defend himself. It was the overpowering weight of that cunningly devised and malignantly arranged circumstantial evidence which seemed to establish his guilt, which fell upon his soul with such crushing weight that he despaired of proving his innocence, and so felt he must let that alone for ever. Later in the day the Squire visited Wilfred’s room, which had been kept locked up since his exile. Sure never did a youth’s bed-chamber speak more eloquently of the pure and noble nature of its possessor than that.