“I have spent the day in Canterbury,” returned Rufus sullenly. “What have you been doing there?” “Getting drunk,” was the dogged answer. The young man’s face testified to his truthfulness. His eyes, wild in their glances, were bloodshot and watery, and he had a reckless air, as if he had thrown off all restraints of virtue and decency. Craven Black experienced a sense of alarm. He began to fear lest his son would defeat all his plans by his obstinacy and recklessness. “You do not ask me about the girl,” said the father, with more gentleness than was usual to him. “I have seen her.” “I supposed you had,” was the reply. “I gave you her address.” “I told her the truth,” said Craven Black, puzzled by his son’s strange mood. “I explained to her kindly enough that her marriage with you was no marriage at all. She readily accepted the situation. She cried a little, to be sure, but she said herself that she was of lower rank than you, and that the match was too unequal. She--she said that of course all was over between you, and it was best you and she should never meet again. And in fact, to render any such meeting impossible, she left her lodging while I was there.” Rufus fixed a burning gaze upon his father. “I don’t believe a word you say,” he cried. “The news you carried to her broke my darling’s heart. Do you suppose I do not know how much she loved me? I was all she had in the wide world--her only friend. Think of that, sir! Her only friend--and you have torn me from her. If she dies of grief, you are her murderer.” Craven Black shuddered involuntarily, remembering poor Lally’s flight, and his conviction that she had gone to destroy herself. His emotion did not pass unnoticed by his son. “Poor Lally!” said Rufus, his voice trembling. “It’s all over between us forever. I have blighted her life, ruined her good name, and made her an outcast. Yet it was not I who did this. It was you. Her blood be upon your head. If I could find her and were free to woo her, she would never take me back, now that I have proved myself a liar, perjurer and pitiful wretched coward. It is indeed all over between us. You can do what you like with the wreck you have made me. You might have given me a chance to redeem myself; you might have let me be true to her, but you would make me perjure myself doubly. I hope you are pleased with your work.”