She paused only a moment to take breath. “It was before we knew how he had behaved to dear little Bride,” she continued, still in haste, and in an undertone. “What he did was a forgery--a forgery! people were hanged for it then. It was either a bill, or a cheque, or something, and Mr Reginald had written to it another man’s name. It happened when Papa was in the bank, and before old Mr Lombard died--old Mr Lombard had a great kindness for your father, and we had great hopes then--and by good fortune the thing was brought to Papa. Your father was always very quick, Charlie--he found it out in a moment. So he told old Mr Lombard of it in a quiet way, and Mr Lombard consented he should take it back to Mr Reginald, and tell him it was found out, and hush all the business up. If your papa had not been so quick, Charlie, but had paid the money at once, as almost any one else would have done, it all must have been found out, and he would have been hanged, as certain as anything--he, a haughty young gentleman, and a lord’s son!” “And a very good thing, too,” exclaimed Charlie; “saved him from doing any more mischief. So, I suppose now, it’s all my father’s blame.” “This Lord Winterbourne is a bad man,” said Mrs Atheling, taking no notice of her son’s interruption: “first he was furious to William, and then he cringed and fawned to him; and of course he had it on his conscience then about poor little Bride, though we did not know--and then he raved, and said he was desperate, and did not know what to do for money. Your father came home to me, quite unhappy about him; for he belonged to the same country, and everybody tried to make excuses for Mr Reginald, being a young man, and the heir. So William made it up in his own mind to go and tell the old lord, who was in London then. The old lord was a just man, but very proud. He did not take it kind of William, and he had no regard for Mr Reginald; but for the honour of the family he sent him away. Then we lost sight of him long, and Aunt Bridget took a dislike to us, and poor little Bride was dead, and we never heard anything of the Lodge or the Hall for many a year; but the old lord died abroad, and Mr Reginald came home Lord Winterbourne. That was all we ever knew. I thought your father had quite forgiven him, Charlie--we had other things to think of than keeping up old grudges--when all at once it came to be in the newspapers that Lord Winterbourne was a political man, that he was making speeches everywhere, and that he was to be one of the ministry. When your father saw that, he blazed up into such an anger! I said all I could, but William never minded me. He never was so bitter before, not even when we heard of little Bride. He said, Such a man to govern us and all the people!--a forger! a liar!--and sometimes, I think, he thought he would expose the whole story, and let everybody know.”