For once in his college life, a burning spot of emotion might have been seen on Raymond Trace's cheek. A foul injury, as he regarded it, had been done to his family and fortune by the father of George Paradyne; and he deemed that the son had no more right to be receiving his education with honest men's sons, as their equal and associate, than darkness has to be made hail-fellow-well-met with light. He went in search of Loftus. Loftus was leaning over the open wall, his legs in the cloisters, his head in the quadrangle, and his arm round a huge pillar, ruminating bitterly on the wrongs dealt out to himself, on Dick's wickedness, and the ignominy of possessing pistols that one can't get at. "I thought I was not mistaken in the fellow," began Trace. "It is George Paradyne." "Who?" cried Loftus, starting round, aroused by the name. "George Paradyne: Paradyne's son." "No! Do you mean that fellow you asked about? It can't be." "It _is_. I knew him, I tell you; and I've been looking at the name on the roll. Your memory must be a bad one, Loftus, not to have recognised the face also." Loftus drew a deep breath, as if unable to take in the full sense of the words. But he never _displayed_ much surprise at anything. "I don't suppose I saw the fellow three times in my life," he presently said. "We did not live on the spot, as you did; and it is so long ago." "What's to be done? He can't be allowed to stay here." Loftus shrugged his shoulders, French fashion, having no answer at hand. "Brabazon is not aware of who he is, I suppose?" "Impossible; or he'd never have admitted him. One can overlook some things in a fellow's antecedents; but _forgery_—that's rather too strong. If the rest of the college chose to tolerate him, you and I and Dick could not." Mr. Loftus threw up his condemning nose at the latter addition. Dick, indeed! Dick seemed to be going in for something too bad on his own score, to be fastidious as to the society he kept. "What's the matter?" inquired one of the first-class boys, Irby, coming up to them from the middle of the quadrangle, and leaning his arms on the cloister wall, to talk face to face. "That new fellow, Paradyne—do you know which of them he is?" broke off Trace. Irby nodded. "A good-looking chap, don't you mean? Well up in his classics." "Well up in them by the help of stolen money, I suppose," spoke Trace, an angry light for a moment gleaming in his eye. "You have heard, Irby, of that dreadful business of ours at Liverpool, some four years ago, when Loftus & Trace, the best and richest and most respected firm in the town, were ruined through a man they had taken in as partner?" "I've heard something of it," said Irby, wondering. "This new fellow, Paradyne, is the man's son." Irby gave a low whistle. "Let's hear the particulars, Trace."