Mr. Levinger had begun the putting of this “strange case” quietly enough, speaking in his usual low and restrained voice; but as he went on he grew curiously excited—so much so, indeed, that, notwithstanding his lameness, he rose from his chair, and, resting on his ebony stick, limped backwards and forwards across the room—while the increasing clearness and emphasis of his voice revealed the emotion under which he was labouring. As he asked the question with which his story culminated, he halted in his march directly opposite to the chair upon which Henry was sitting, and, leaning on his stick, looked him in the face with his piercing brown eyes. “Of course he would,” answered Henry quietly. “Of course he would,” repeated Mr. Levinger. “Captain Graves, that story was my story, and that friend was your father. I do not say that it is all the story, for there are things which I cannot speak of, but it is some of it—more, indeed, than is known to any living man except Sir Reginald. Forgiving me my sins against him, believing that he saw good in me, your father picked me out of the mire and started me afresh in life. When I came to these parts an unknown wanderer, he found me work; he even gave me the agency of this property, which I held till I had no longer any need of it. I have told you all this partly because you are your father’s son, and partly because I have watched you and followed your career from boyhood, and know you to be a man of the strictest honour, who will never use my words against me. “I repeat that I have not told you everything, for even since those days I have been no saint,— a man who has let his passions run riot for years does not grow good in an hour, Captain Graves. But I trust that you will not think worse of me than I deserve, for it still pains me to lose the good opinion of an upright man. One thing at least I have done—though I borrowed from my daughter to do it, and pinched myself till I am thought to be miserly—at length I have paid back all those thousands that I owed, either to my creditors or to their descendants: yes, not a month ago I settled the last and heaviest claim. And now, Captain Graves, you will understand why I have advanced moneys beyond their value upon mortgage of the Rosham estates. Your father, who has long forgotten or rather ignored the past, believes it to have been done in the ordinary way of business; I have told you the true reason.”