Trace felt uncommonly taken to. He had not a great deal of moral courage. "Oh," said he, shuffling with the reins, "that's an old affair now; past and gone." "Not quite past and gone yet, Trace. What could have led to your suspecting me? Will you tell me the truth, so far? I have a reason for asking." "Of course it was only a doubt. Some one must have gone in and taken it, and Lamb saw you there before the window. And—you appear to be always so inconveniently short of money as to make a few pounds an object," candidly added Trace, plucking up his courage. "Pardon my alluding to it." "Slight grounds. I don't think I should have suspected you on such. Was there no other reason?" "Except that you are a sneak and a cad," rose to Trace's lips. But he did not consider it would be convenient to speak it, and answered with a monosyllable, "None." "Then —— was it a kind or a good thing of you to go with these suspicions to Miss Brabazon, my master's daughter? Had the doctor been a different man from what he is, you might have utterly ruined me. A charge of this nature cannot be refuted, in most cases, as easily as it is made." "Have you refuted this one?" asked Trace, turning full upon him. "Yes; at once and entirely. I did not know until to-day that it stood against me." "Then I must tender you my apologies," returned Trace. Not that there was the least sign of apology in his tone; rather, it seemed to have borrowed the haughty ring of his cousin's, Bertie Loftus. "There was no harm done, it appears, so don't let us have a fuss raised now." "I am not one to raise a fuss. You cannot but be conscious that to you, Trace, I have been especially tolerant—some might say forbearing. I fear it has been lost upon you." "You have been very kind, no doubt," cynically returned Trace. "I do not wish more tolerance or forbearance shown to me than others get. Neither am I conscious of having received more." "No? Yet I have been keeping some of your secrets, Trace. Suppose I had betrayed you in the matter of Paradyne's essay?" "Of Paradyne's essay?" echoed Trace, seizing the whip and flicking the ear of one of the pretty ponies. "I don't think you know what you are talking of." "Yes I do. And so do you. When I saw the blotches of ink on your wristband that afternoon, and asked what had caused them, that you should be so sedulous to tuck it out of sight, you knew as well as I did that I guessed the secret. I did not tell of you. It would have been a shocking thing, ruining you with the school and with the masters. Not even to forward the interests of Paradyne in a just cause, would I injure _you_. I wonder if you will ever understand me, Trace; or get to learn that I would be your friend and not your enemy?" Trace cut the air with his whip; but he gave no answer. At that moment Sir Simon came back, holding out his hand in his cordial manner.