“Dear Sir,--I cannot imagine that such a meeting as you propose would be agreeable to either of us; certainly the impression my memory retains of you, forbids me to believe that you would like to see me as I am, and where I am. If your desire be, however, prompted by any kind thought of serving me, let me frankly tell you that I am as much beyond the reach of such kindness as any man can be who lives and breathes in this weary world. Leave me, therefore, to myself, and forget me. “I am grateful for your attentions to my boy, but you will understand why I cannot permit him to revisit you. I am, faithfully yours, “John H. Luttrell.” “Well, did I guess aright?” cried Grenfell, as Vyner stood reading the letter over for the third time; “is his answer what I predicted?” “Very nearly so,” said the other, as he handed him the letter to read. “It is even stronger than I looked for; and he begins ‘Dear Sir.’” “Yes, and I addressed him ‘My dear Luttrell!’” “Well; all the good sense of the correspondence is on his side; he sees naturally enough the worse than uselessness of a meeting. How could it be other than painful?” “Still, I am very sorry that he should refuse me.” “Of course you are; it is just the way a fellow in all the vigour of health walks down the ward of an hospital, and, as he glances at the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes on either side, fancies how philanthropic and good he is to come there and look at them. You wanted to go and stare at this poor devil out of that sentimental egotism. I’m certain you never suspected it, but there is the secret of your motive, stripped of all its fine illusions.” “How ill you think of every one, and with what pleasure you think it!” “Not a bit. I never suffer myself to be cheated; but it does not amuse me in the least to unmask the knavery.” “Now, having read me so truthfully, will you interpret Luttrell a little?” “His note does not want a comment. The man has no wish to have his poverty and degraded condition spied out. He feels something too low for friendship, and too high for pity; and he shrinks, and very naturally shrinks, from a scene in which every look he gave, every word he uttered, every sigh that he could but half smother, would be recalled to amuse your wife and your sister-in-law when you reached home again.” “He never imputed anything of the kind to me,” said Vyner, angrily. “And why not? Are we in our gossiping moments intent upon anything but being agreeable, not very mindful of private confidences or indiscreet avowals? We are only bent upon being good recounters, sensation novelists, always flattering ourselves the while as to the purity of our motives and the generosity of our judgments, when we throw into the narrative such words as the ‘poor fellow,’ the ‘dear creature.’ We forget the while that the description of the prisoner never affects the body of the indictment.”