The son, Benjamin, was intended for a surgeon. As a preliminary, he was bound apprentice to his father in order to learn the mysteries of drugs and chemicals. When out of his time, he was transferred to a chemist and druggist's at Tewkesbury, who was also in practice as a medical man. There, Mr. Benjamin fell in with bad companions; a lapse that, in course of time, resulted in his coming home, changing the note in our letter for the stolen one, and then decamping from Timberdale. What with the blow the discovery itself was to Rymer, and what with the concealing of the weighty secret--for he had to conceal it: he could not go and inform against his own son--it pretty nearly did for him. Rymer tried to make reparation in one sense of the word--by the bringing of that five-pound bank-note to the Squire. For which the Squire, ignorant of the truth, thought him a downright lunatic. For some months, after that evening, Thomas Rymer was to be seen in his shop as usual, growing to look more and more like a ghost. Which Darbyshire, the Timberdale doctor, said was owing to liver, and physicked him well. But the physic did not answer. Of all obstinate livers, as Darbyshire said, Rymer's was about the worst he had ever had to do with. Some days he could not go into the shop at all, and Margaret, his daughter, had to serve the customers. She could make up prescriptions just as well as he, and people grew to trust her. They had a good business. It was known that Rymer's drugs were genuine; had direct from the fountain-head. He had given up the post-office, and the grocer opposite had taken to it--Salmon, who was brother to Salmon of South Crabb. In this uncertain way, a week ill, and a week tolerably well, Rymer continued to go on for about two years. * * * * * Margaret Rymer stood behind the counter: a neat little girl in grey merino. Her face was just like her father's; the same delicate features, the sweet brown eyes, and the look of innate refinement. Margaret belonged to his side of the house; there was not an atom of the Brummagem Bateses in her. The Squire, who remembered her grandfather the clergyman, said Margaret took after him. She was in her nineteenth year now, and for steadiness you might have trusted her alone right across the world and back again. She stood behind the counter, making up some medicine. A woman in a coarse brown cloak with a showy cotton handkerchief tied on her head was waiting for it. It had been a dull autumn day: evening was coming on, and the air felt chilly. "How much be it, please, miss?" asked the woman, as Margaret handed her the bottle of mixture, done up in white paper. "Eighteenpence. Thank you." "Be the master better?" the woman turned round from the door to inquire, as if the state of Mr. Rymer's health had been an afterthought. "I think he is a little. He has a very bad cold, and is lying in bed to-day. Thank you for asking. Good-night."