"Mr. Streightley, this is kind indeed! This is an honour I can never forget!" Streightley, rather taken aback at the warmth of his reception, said, "it is nothing, Mr. Guyon. I can assure you I merely called because----" "I know, my dear sir, I know. My daughter explained to me what she did yesterday, and how generously you received her." Robert's eyes brightened as he listened. "Women, you know, my dear sir, are all impulse. You are a married man, my dear Mr. Streightley? No! well, still, my dear sir, I daresay--ha, ha!--that you have thorough experience of the other sex. When a man is young, and pleasing, and rich--O yes, by George, rich ha, ha!--he has opportunities of studying the other sex, even if he be not married. Not married? Let me see, what was I saying? O, my daughter--who is the prop and sunshine of my life, the dearest and most devoted creature in the world--my daughter has told me of the document which caused her such fright. It was--it was merely the--usual notice, I suppose?" "It was the usual notice." As Streightley said this, a loud peal at the door-bell attracted his attention. "And the amount?" "A hundred and eighty pounds odd--stay, I have the bill with me;" and drawing out his pocketbook, Robert produced the document. As he did this, he heard the street-door opened, and the sound of a man's footsteps passing the dining-room and going upstairs. His heart sank within him. He would swear to that footfall--swear to it any where; had he not heard it twelve hours before echoing up the hollow staircase in Crown Office Row? It was that man; and he was going upstairs to see Miss Guyon, doubtless in fulfilment of some appointment made during the exchange of bows and glances at the carriage-door last night. He turned deadly pale, and his lips trembled. "Will you allow me to look at that bill?" said Mr. Guyon in his most mellifluous tones. "Thank you. How your hand trembles!--a little chill perhaps. Draw closer to the fire. We seem to have begun the cold weather already. For my own part, I could always endure a fire--O, this is really very bad of Davidson; very bad indeed!" He had been surveying the document which Streightley had handed to him through a pair of gold double eyeglasses perched on the bridge of his nose; and he now looked over them at Streightley as he repeated, "Very bad indeed!" "I--I beg your pardon--my attention was diverted. What did you say?" "I said, Mr. Streightley," said Mr. Guyon with increased sternness, "that this is a very bad business of Davidson's. I gave him this acceptance, sir, to help him in--the what do you call it?--the hour of need, under the full understanding that he would meet it. It was for his convenience, not for mine. I never had a shilling of the produce; and now he leaves me to discharge it at a time when he knows that----" "That it will be inconvenient to meet it?"