"And, by-the-bye, the sum was never fixed," said Garth, resting his elbows on the table and scanning his prospective son-in-law sharply. "I must have all that clearly settled before I make that call with you on the Consul to-morrow morning." And here a difference of opinion was made manifest which seemed to threaten a serious breach between the worthy pair. Wallace Armstrong was inclined to dismiss his future father-in-law's pretensions with the offer of a pound a week for life, or so long as he should retain his uncle's favour. But Laline's father had prepared a fixed scale of charges, from which nothing would induce him to depart. He was making a great sacrifice, he declared; he was relinquishing the love, companionship, and services of his only living relative, the pride of his heart, the legacy of his lost wife, and, out of sheer kindness and compassion for an old friend in difficulties, he was giving her in marriage to a man who he greatly feared would never make her truly happy. "And if you should grow tired of her or become unkind to her, where would the poor child fly but to me, her old father, whom she has been forced to consider dead, but who, in his old age, must at least be sufficiently well off to provide her with a home when all else fails her!" Tears stood in Captain Garth's eyes at his own eloquence, to which the younger man listened quite unmoved. Two pounds a week, to be paid quarterly from the date of the marriage, three pounds a week when the income allowed by Alexander Wallace should be raised to five hundred a year; and in the event of the banker dying and leaving a will favourable to Armstrong, an income for Garth of two hundred and fifty a year for the remainder of his life. Until fully three o'clock the two men sat smoking and drinking cognac, while they quarrelled and haggled and finally out cards over the settlement of the elder man's allowance in the event of his giving his daughter in marriage to the ex-forger and family scapegrace before him. Not until the early sunrise forced its rays through the green shutters did they part, Randolph Garth having won all he demanded, and retiring to bed in high good humour; while Wallace, disdainfully refusing the offer of a "shake-up" in the _salle-à-manger_, took his way down to the town and his hotel, cursing his future father-in-law for a swindling old reprobate, and his uncle for a narrow-minded old skinflint and imbecile.