"Oh, sir, don't turn him out!" interrupted Mr. Henry, his voice ringing with pain. "To dismiss George Paradyne from the college, now that he has entered it, might prove a serious blight upon him; a blight that might follow him everywhere, for the cause could not fail to be noised abroad. Better let him stay and face it out: he may—it is possible he may—in time—live it down. I beg your pardon, Dr. Brabazon; I ought not to have said so much." "My good friend,"—and the doctor was a little agitated also,—"you never need urge clemency on me. Heaven knows that we have, most of us, secret cares of our own; and they render us—or ought to—lenient upon others. If I could wipe out with a sponge the past as regards young Paradyne, I'd do it in glad thankfulness. He is to remain; it is so decided; and I hope the past will not ooze out to the school. That is what I fear." "In himself he is, I think, everything that could be wished," said the usher in a low tone; "a good, honourable, painstaking boy, with the most implicit trust in his late father's innocence." Dr. Brabazon lifted his eyes. "But there are no possible grounds to hope that he was innocent! Are there?" "Not any, I fear." "Well, well; better perhaps that the son should think it. You were not in Liverpool when it happened?" "I was in Germany. The account of it was sent to me." "By whom?—if I may ask it." "By Mrs. Paradyne." "_She_ does not believe her husband to have been innocent?" "Oh, no." "Has Mrs. Paradyne enough to live upon?" pursued the doctor, whose interest in the affair had been growing. "Her income is, I believe, very small indeed." "Then how does she give the boy this expensive education?" "I fancy some friend helps her," was the reply. "And I know that a considerable reduction was made in the terms of the last school, on account of the boy's fluency in French and German." "I suppose you have kept up a correspondence with them, Mr. Henry?" "Yes; though not a very frequent one." "When you knew Mr. Paradyne, was he an honest man?" "Strictly so; honourable, upright, entitled to every respect. I have never been able to understand how he could fall from it." "One of those sudden temptations, I suppose," observed the doctor, musingly. "Beginning in a trifle; ending—nobody knows where. I won't detain you longer, Mr. Henry." Mr. Henry left the room with his letter. Miss Brabazon found her tongue, speaking impulsively. "Papa, how strangely sensitive he seems to be, this new master of yours! Did you see the hectic on his face?" "Poor fellow, yes. He is very friendless; and, to be so, gives us a fellow-feeling for the unfortunate, Emma." "Are you aware that he is Dr. Henry?" "Is he? He took honours abroad, I believe. We don't think much of that, you know." "He drops the title over here; does not care that it should be known. Did it strike you, papa, while he was speaking, that he must have some secret trouble of his own?"