"Mr. Ascott! will you explain yourself?" "I will, ma'am. It's a very unpleasant business I come about; any other gentleman but me would have come with a police officer at his back. Look here, Miss Hilary Leaf--did you ever set eyes on this before?" He took out his check book, turned deliberately over the small memorandum halves of the page, till he came to one in particular, then hunted in his pocket book for something. "My banker sent in to-day my canceled checks, which I don't usually go over oftener than three months; he knew that, the scamp." Hilary looked up. "Your nephew, to be sure. See!" He spread before her a check, the very one she had watched him write seven days before, made payable to "Ascott Leaf, or bearer," and signed with the bold, peculiar signature. "Peter Ascott." Only instead of being a check for twenty pounds it was for seventy. Instantly the whole truth flashed upon Hilary: Ascott's remark about how easily the T could be made into an S, and what a "good joke" it would be; his long absence that night; his strange manner: his refusal to let her see the check again; all was clear as daylight. Unfortunate boy! the temptation had been too strong for him. Under what sudden, insane impulse he had acted--under what delusion of being able to repay in time; or of Mr. Ascott's not detecting the fraud; or if discovered, of its being discovered after the marriage, when to prosecute his wife's nephew would be a disgrace to himself, could never be known. But there unmistakable was the altered check, which had been presented and paid, the banker of course not having the slightest suspicion of any thing amiss. "Well, isn't this a nice return for all my kindness? So cleverly done, too. But for the merest chance I might not have found it out for three months. Oh, he's a precious young rascal, this nephew of yours. His father was only a fool, but he-- Do you know that this is a matter of forgery--forgery, ma'am," added Mr. Ascott, waxing hot in his indignation. Hilary uttered a bitter groan. Yes, it was quite true. Their Ascott, their own boy, was no longer merely idle, extravagant, thoughtless--faults bad enough, but capable of being mended as he grew older: he had done that which to the end of his days he could never blot out. He was a swindler and a forger. She clasped her hands tightly together, as one struggling with sharp physical pain, trying to read the expression of Mr. Ascott's face. At last she put her question into words. "What do you mean to do? Shall you prosecute him?" Mr. Ascott crossed his legs, and settled his neckcloth with a self-satisfied air. He evidently rather enjoyed the importance of his position. To be dictator, almost of life and death, to this unfortunate family was worth certainly fifty pounds.