‘No,’ said Treverton, ‘that is a dark page in my life which I would willingly tear out of the book; but I have always known the probability of my finding myself identified with the past, sooner or later. This world of ours is monstrous big when a man tries to make a figure in it; but it’s very small when he wants to hide himself from his fellow-men. I have told my wife all I can tell her without stripping the veil from that past life of mine. To reveal more would be to make her unhappy. You can have no motive for telling her more than I have told her. I can rely on your honour in this matter?’ ‘You can,’ answered Desrolles, looking at him curiously; ‘but I shall expect you to treat me handsomely--as a son-in-law, whose wealth has come to him through his marriage, should treat his wife’s father.’ ‘What would you call handsome treatment?’ asked Treverton. ‘I’ll tell you. My daughter, who has a woman’s petty notions about money, has offered me six hundred a year. I want a thousand.’ ‘Do you?’ asked Treverton, with half-concealed contempt. ‘Well, live a respectable life, and neither your daughter nor I will grudge you a thousand a year.’ ‘I shall live the life of a gentleman. Not in England. My daughter wants to get me out of the country. She said as much just now; or, at any rate, what she did say implied as much. A continental life would suit my humour, and perhaps mend my health. Annuitants are long-lived.’ ‘Not when they drink a bottle of brandy a day.’ ‘In a milder climate I may diminish the quantity. Give me a hundred in ready money to begin with, and I’ll go back to London by the first train to-morrow morning, and start for Paris at night. I ask for no father’s place at your Christmas table. I don’t want you to kill the fatted calf for me.’ ‘I understand,’ said Treverton, with an involuntary sneer, ‘you only want money. You shall have it.’ He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and unlocked a despatch box, in which he was in the habit of keeping money received from his steward before he sent it off to the bank. There was a little over a hundred pounds in the box, in notes and gold. John Treverton counted a hundred; the crisp notes, the bright gold, lay in a tempting heap on the table before him, but he kept his hand upon the money for a minute or two, while he sat looking at it with a meditative countenance. ‘By the way, Mr. ---- Mansfield,’ he began after that thoughtful silence, ‘when, after a lapse of so many years, you presented yourself to your daughter, what credentials did you bring with you?’ ‘Credentials?’ ‘Yes. In other words, how did you prove your identity? You had parted with her when she was a child of six years old. Did her memory recall your features when she met you as a girl of seventeen, or did she take your word for the fact that you were the father she had believed to be in his grave?’