"I did," affirmed Sir Simon, to the evident surprise of his brother-in-law. "Mary Trace had been a hard, cold woman, as you know; but the light broke in upon her when she was dying. It changed her nature—as of course, or it had not been the true, blessed light from heaven—and she got anxious for others. More than once she spoke to me of the Paradynes; their fate seemed to lie like a weight upon her. 'If ever you can lend them a helping hand, Simon, do it,' she urged; 'do it for our Saviour's sake.' I can see her blue, pinched lips now, and the anxious fever in her eyes as she spoke," he added dreamily, "and I promised. But I would help the lad for his own sake, apart from this." Mr. Loftus made no comment: to confess the truth, he could not quite understand why Mrs. Trace should have done this. He raised his double eye-glass. "Is not that Albert?" he asked. "There, in the distance, with one or two more young men." And Sir Simon turned his long glass in the direction to which he pointed. Close against the water they stood; three of them—Bertie, for he it was, and Gall, and Leek. The tide was nearly out, and Bertie and Gall had found their way round the point, from the heights down to the sands, a long round, wrangling all the way. Had Mr. Loftus and Sir Simon but possessed an ear-glass as well as an eye-glass, they might have heard more than was meant for them. That Bertie Loftus was bent upon aggravating Gall by every means in his power, short of vulgar blows, was indisputable; each word he spoke was an insult, a derisive taunt; and Gall, who had rebelled against this kind of treatment from Bertie, even when it was implied rather than expressed, was nearly stung into madness. "Why don't you have it out, and have done with it?" he passionately cried, stopping short as they came round in view of the établissement and its frequenters. "If you keep on like this, you'll provoke me to kick you to ribbons." Bertie smiled derisively. Kick _him_ to ribbons! His legs were twice as long as Gall's, if it came to kicking. Not that Bertie would have played at that. "There's no chance of having it out with _you_," came the coolly contemptuous answer. "The only way which gentlemen use to 'have things out,' you don't understand. And you can't be expected to." Leek espied them from a distance and came running up. It was at this moment that Mr. Loftus's glasses happened to fall upon them. "Look at him, Onions," cried Bertie, indicating Gall by a sweep of the hand that was the very essence of insolent scorn. "He is asking me to go in for a game of kicking." "I am saying that I'll kick _you_ if you don't stop your row," cried Gall, his very lips white with passion. "And so I will." "I never did see two such fellows as you," was Leek's comment. "You can't meet without insulting each other. What's come to you both?"