But when the time came she was not very hard; she said to him as they stood at the gate of the cottage together, the last time he ever saw her alive, "Rupert, I want you to know we are not ignorant of how, when we were so poor, you sold Archie's secret to Mr. Douglas. Now, there are some things I can understand; I can under pressure imagine Lazarus robbing Dives, and a man in extremity forging and telling falsehoods to save his credit, but I cannot understand the nature of the person who shall steal twopence-halfpenny from the pocket of a blind old widow, or who, when the man who befriended him is sick and incompetent, takes that opportunity to rob him of the only possession left. You need not try to defend yourself, Rupert, because your conduct is indefensible." "I shall not try," he said huskily; "I was wrong." "That is enough; do not vex yourself about the matter now," she answered, "for, Rupert, unintentionally when you took Archie's ewe lamb, you gave him that which will turn eventually into a great flock of sheep." CHAPTER XV. MR. ASHERILL IS PERSUADED. There could be no doubt but that Mortomley and Mr. Douglas were two men who ought, according to human wisdom, to have met earlier. Though a colour manufacturer, the latter had, through want of the inventive or combinative quality, been compelled to run in old grooves, while the former lacked precisely that firmness of character and mastery of detail which had made the northern merchant's fortune. Mr. Douglas was one of those men who feel they cannot stand still and let the world get in advance of them, even though their pockets do chance to be stuffed with gold, and almost at the first glance, certainly after half an hour's conversation, he knew Mortomley was that other business half which himself required and for which he had been vainly seeking through years among all sorts and conditions of men. As has been said in an early chapter of this story, Mortomley's genius was essentially imaginative. "Give him a laboratory and ease of mind, and there is scarcely a difficulty in our trade he could not overcome," thought Mr. Douglas. "If he can make a purely vegetable green, as he says he can, and I believe he says only what is literally true, he ought to make his fortune, and I should feel very much inclined to help him to do it." But when, subsequently, he broached this idea, Mortomley shook his head. "I can never make a fortune unless I am able to procure my discharge, and if I live to be as old as Methuselah I shall never obtain that." It was on this occasion that he gave Mr. Douglas a slight sketch of his experiences of liquidation. All the deeper tints, all the darker shadows, all the lurid colouring, Dolly added at a later period in the garden at Homewood, a place, Mr. Douglas said, he particularly wished to see.