Mat placed the Address on the table again, immediately in front of him; and took a pencil from a tray with writing materials in it, which stood near at hand. “Friends _‘who have put the most affectionate trust in you,’”_ he repeated. “The name of one of them friends isn’t here. It ought to be; and I mean to put it down.” As the point of his pencil touched the paper of the Address, Mr. Thorpe started from his chair. “What am I to understand, sir, by this conduct?” he began haughtily, stretching out his hand to possess himself of the Address. Mat looked up with the serpent-glitter in his eyes, and the angry red tinge glowing in the scars on his cheek. “Sit down,” he said, “I’m not quick at writing. Sit down, and wait till I’m done.” Mr. Thorpe’s face began to look a little agitated. He took a step towards the fireplace, intending to ring the bell. “Sit down, and wait,” Mat reiterated, in quick, fierce, quietly uttered tones of command, rising from his own chair, and pointing peremptorily to the seat just vacated by the master of the house. A sudden doubt crossed Mr. Thorpe’s mind, and made him pause before he touched the bell. Could this man be in his right senses? His actions were entirely unaccountable--his words and his way of uttering them were alike strange--his scarred, scowling face looked hardly human at that moment. Would it be well to summon help? No, worse than useless. Except the page, who was a mere boy, there were none but women servants in the house. When he remembered this, he sat down again, and at the same moment Mat began, clumsily and slowly, to write on the blank space beneath the last signature attached to the Address. The sky was still darkening apace, the rain was falling heavily and more heavily, as he traced the final letter, and then handed the paper to Mr. Thorpe, bearing inscribed on it the name of MARY GRICE. “Read that name,” said Mat. Mr. Thorpe looked at the characters traced by the pencil. His face changed instantly--he sank down into the chair--one faint cry burst from his lips--then he was silent. Low, stifled, momentary as it was, that cry proclaimed him to be the man. He was self-denounced by it even before he cowered down, shuddering in the chair, with both his hands pressed convulsively over his face. Mat rose to his feet and spoke; eyeing him pitilessly from head to foot. “Not a friend of all of ‘em,” he said, pointing down at the Address, “put such affectionate trust in you, as she did. When first I see her grave in the strange churchyard, I said I’d be even with the man who laid her in it. I’m here to-day to be even with _you._ Carr or Thorpe, whichever you call yourself; I know how you used her from first to last! _Her_ father was _my_ father; _her_ name is _my_ name: you were _her_ worst enemy three-and-twenty year ago; you are _my_ worst enemy now. I’m her brother, Matthew Grice!”