Ffrench gave him one hopeless glance and wilted into a drooping, weakly protesting, humiliated figure. "Don't--don't be so severe, Haworth," he said. "I--I----" "Blast you!" burst in Haworth, pitilessly. "You've ruined me!" He spoke under his breath. No one in the room beyond could hear a word, but it was a thousand times more terrible than if he had roared at the top of his voice, as was his custom when things went amiss. "You've ruined me!" he repeated. "_You!_ A chap that's played gentleman manufacturer; a chap I've laughed at; a chap I took in to serve my own ends--ruined me, by----" "Oh, no, no!" the culprit cried out. "My dear fellow, no! No, no!" Haworth strode up to him and struck his fist against the table. "Have I ever told you a word of what was going on?" he demanded. "No! No!" "Have I ever let you be aught but what I swore you should be at th' first--a fellow to play second fiddle and do what he was told?" Ffrench turned pale. A less hard nature would have felt more sympathy for him. "No," he answered, "you have not," and his chin dropped on his breast. Haworth shook his fist in his face. He was in a frenzy of rage and despair. "It's been going from bad to worse for six months," he said; "but you were not up to seeing it stare you in the face. Strikes are the things for trade to thrive on! One place after another gone down and Jem Haworth's stood up. Jem Haworth's outdone 'em all. I've not slept for three month, my lad. I've fought it like a tiger! I've not left a stone unturned. I've held my mouth shut and my eyes open,--aye, and held my breath, too. I've swore every time I saw daylight that I'd hold it out to the end and show 'em all what Haworth was made of, and how he stood when th' nobs went down at the first drive. I'd sooner have hell than what's bound to come now! And it's you that's done it. You've lost me twenty thousand pound--twenty thousand, when ten's worth more to me than a hundred was a twelvemonth since!" Ffrench quailed like a woman. "Are--are you going to murder me?" he said. "You look as if you were." Haworth turned on his heel. "You're not worth it," he answered, "or I'd do it, by the Lord Harry." Then he came back to him. "I've paid enow for what I've never had, by George," he said, with bitter grimness. "For what you have----" Ffrench began. Haworth stopped him by flinging himself down in a chair near him--so near that their faces were brought within uncomfortably close range of each other. There was no avoiding his eye. "You know what," he sneered. "None better." "I----" Ffrench faltered. "Blast you!" said Haworth. "You played her like bait to a fish--in your gentleman's fashion." Ffrench felt a little sick. It was not unnatural that he should. A man of refined instincts likes less than any other man to be confronted brutally with the fact that he has, however delicately, tampered with a coarseness. Haworth went on.