He paused in his walk, and looked round the darkened chamber as if he feared an actual hidden presence there; then he walked to his desk, struck a match, and applied it to the wick of a small shaded reading-lamp; then, stealthily, and with more than one glance over his shoulder, he unlocked the desk, touched a spring, and drew from a secret drawer a scrap of paper and a miniature portrait. It was to the paper he gave his first attention. The writing, originally bold and heavy, had faded to a faint rusty red, the paper was stained and spotted. ‘Take your child,’ he read falteringly; ‘and as you use him may God use you.’ He sat staring at the flame of the lamp, blurred by the mist of gathering tears. ‘As you use him, may God use you,’ he repeated half aloud. ‘I’ll do my duty by the boy--I _must!_ Before God, if Moya were alive!--No, even that wouldn’t mend matters--it wouldn’t even mend her broken heart. It was not that she wasn’t my lady--not that her vanity was wounded--it was the treachery! She loved me--she thought me an honest man. It was her pride in me that was broken. God forgive me! I acted like a villain!’ He took up the portrait and bent his eyes upon it with a long, regretful gaze. It was the work of a true artist, who had caught and reproduced with actual fidelity the features and expression of the proud and tender girl Kilpatrick had betrayed. The bright, gay face, instinct with youth and happiness, beamed from the picture; the sensitive lips seemed almost to tremble as the world-worn old man gazed at them. The dress was that of the better class of an Irish peasant of twenty years ago; but the hand which held the shawl about the throat wore jewelled rings. ‘She sent back the rings--every scrap and every rag I’d ever given her,’ said Kilpatrick. They lay in the secret drawer, and rattled as his blanched fingers drew them forth. ‘She wouldn’t wear the dress I’d given her when she had this taken. “Let me be as I was when you first knew me, when the great lord wasn’t ashamed to tell the poor girl he loved her.”’ With a sudden passionate gesture of love and remorse, he carried the picture to his lips. ‘My lord!’ said a voice so startlingly close that it seemed to be at his very ear. Kilpatrick turned with a start and beheld a dim form standing in the shadow of the door. ‘Confound you!’ he said. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Just Peebles,’ said that worthy with his usual slow Scotch drawl. ‘Confound you,’ said his lordship again, ‘why didn’t you knock?’ ‘I knocked twice,’ said Peebles, ‘and got nae answer. Mr. Conseltine told me ye needed me.’ Kilpatrick dropped the letter and the miniature back into the desk and closed and locked it before speaking again. ‘Is Feagus still below?’ ‘Ay,’ said Peebles. ‘He’s drinking with Mr. Conseltine and Mr. Richard. He’s just as drunk as a lord--begging your lordship’s pardon. It’s an old proverb, and like the most o’ proverbs, it has its exceptions.’ ‘Drunk, eh?’ said his lordship musingly.