And yet, when Vincent turned to the letter, it seemed terribly simple, and straightforward, and sincere. There was no vindictiveness in it at all; rather there was a pained surprise on the part of the writer that a loyal Scot—one, too, who had been admitted into that fraternity of song-writing exiles over the water—should have been guilty of such a flagrant breach of trust. Then Lord Musselburgh’s patronage, as the young man knew very well, had taken the form of a cheque; so that the charge brought by the writer of this letter practically was that George Bethune had obtained, and might even now be obtaining, money by fraud and false pretences. It was a bewildering thing—an impossible thing—to think of. And now, as he strove to construct all sorts of explanatory hypotheses, there seemed to stand in the background the visionary form of Mrs. Ellison; and her eyes were cold and inquiring. How had she come to suspect? It was not likely that she could be familiar with the Scotch-American newspaper offices of the United States. No, he could make nothing of it; his perplexity only increased. All kinds of doubts, surmises, possible excuses went chasing each other through his brain. Perhaps it was only literary vanity that had prompted the old man to steal this project when it was placed before him? Or perhaps he thought he had a better right to it, from his wide knowledge of the subject? Vincent knew little of the laws and bye-laws of the literary world; perhaps this was but a bit of rivalry carried too far; and in any case, supposing the old man had erred in his eagerness to claim this topic as his own, surely that did not prove him to be a charlatan all the way through, still less a professional impostor? But then his making use of this scheme to obtain money—and that not only from Lord Musselburgh? Oh, well (the young man tried to convince himself) there might not be so much harm in that. No doubt he looked forward to issuing the volume, and giving his patrons value in return. Old George Bethune, as he knew, was quite careless about pecuniary matters: for example, if the bill for those little dinners at the various restaurants was paid by some one, that was enough; the old gentleman made no further inquiries. He was content to let his young friend settle these trivial details; and Master Vin was willing enough. In fact, the latter had devised a system by which the awkwardness of calling for the bill in Maisrie’s presence was avoided; this system worked admirably; and Mr. Bethune asked no questions. Doubtless, if he had remembered, or taken the trouble, he would have paid his shot like anyone else.