The proud spirit of Alison revolted, on consideration, at the idea of accepting or using this money; but her father only asked her how they were to 'rub on' without it, now it had come? But whence came it? Was it sent in charity, or was it the conscience money of some false friend, who in the spendthrift past time had wronged her father on the turf or elsewhere? To soothe her, he was not disinclined to adopt this view of the matter; but to suit his own views he again fell back upon the conviction that the donor could be no other than Lord Cadbury, to return it to whom would be an insult, and whom it would be but proper to thank in some fashion. Thus, great was the surprise of the peer to receive one day at his club a rather effusive letter from Alison, dictated by Sir Ranald to thank him for the birthday gift--as they could not doubt--a gift that nothing but her father's failing health, and the many necessities that it involved, compelled her to accept. Her little hands trembled as she closed this--to her--obnoxious epistle; while her eyes were dim with tears, and her heart wrung with shame and pride, all the more so as she painfully recalled the episode of Mr. Slagg and the acceptances. Cadbury was puzzled sorely; he knew not what to think, and tugged away at his long white moustache, while thinking 'who the devil can have sent this money--a thousand pounds too!' He was not sorry that they should think the gift came from him. 'Hang it all!' he muttered, 'have I not spent ever so much more on and about her--Slagg's devilish bills too--and all for nothing!' So he wrote a very artful answer, expressing his surprise that he should be thanked for such a trifle, thus fully permitting her to infer that the gift was a kindness of his own; and more than ever did Alison feel a humiliation, in which her father--selfish with all his pride--had no share, especially when sipping some very choice dry cliquot 'veuve,' a case of which he had ordered on the head of it, and thought that for a little time at least he had bidden good-bye to _mouton à la Russe_, cold beef, and apple-dumpling--ugh! At his club and elsewhere in London, Cadbury had a nervous fear of the Antwerp affair, and the cause of his sudden departure from that city, oozing out. It might find its way from the _Rag_, of which he doubted not Goring was a member, but Cadbury forgot that the former was too much of a gentleman to tell any anecdote that would involve the name of a lady--more than all, that of Alison Cheyne. But no one can tell how stories get about in these days, and thus, when there was any low-voiced talk or laughter in a corner of the club-room, he grew hot and cold with the terrible suspicion that he was the subject of both. His hatred of Goring grew deeper, and he resolved that he would work him some fatal mischief, if he could.