"This sort of talk, coming from you, is very ridiculous. Has your own life been so pure that you should attempt to blacken another man's character merely because he is my friend?" "Pure? No; no man's life is pure. We are born to evil like the sparks fly upwards. But there's a difference." "Pray, in what does the difference consist? I presume you have not forgotten that at least a portion of your record is known to me?" He shook his head with dogged insistence. "There is a difference. You know there is a difference. There's bad ones and there's bad ones; and Mr. Townsend's the sort of creature that no woman ought to have any truck with. He'll bite you if you do." I got up from my chair. "I am sorry this should have happened, Mr. Haines. I fear I shall have to ask you to come and see me more seldom than you have been in the habit of doing. I hope Mr. Townsend will be a frequent visitor. It would be pleasant neither for you nor for me for you to have to meet him, in my house, when you hold the opinions of him which you say you do." He pressed his lips. He looked, if anything, sourer than ever. "So Mr. Townsend is going to be a frequent visitor, is he? And how about Daniel?--and about me?" I laughed. "About you, Mr. Haines? I hope, Mr. Haines, that you will have a cup of tea." He had one. And did penance in having it. For he hated tea. And it was cold. CHAPTER XXIV. WHAT MRS. CARRUTH SAW. All sorts of things have happened--past all belief. Tommy Tennant has been arrested for murder--for the murder of me! Those wise police! And Reginald Townsend is coming to dine. But let us proceed in order. Each thing in its place, and one at a time. To take two or three things to begin with. The muddle they have made about what happened at Three Bridges is, really, in its way, quite marvellous. And it all pans out so clean--or seems to--to those who are looking on. No one is talking of anything else, and some of them talk of it to me. It only wants Mr. Townsend to favour me with a few remarks, and Tommy to add a postscript, to make me begin to think that I must be dreaming. They have found the porter who saw me into the train at Brighton, and he has declared that the corpse is me! What a sweet creature that porter man must be! And they have found the porter who saw Tommy get out of the empty, blood-stained carriage at Victoria. But how they have found Tommy himself I don't, as yet, altogether understand. I know they have not found me. I have had another sight of Tommy since the one on that first night--or, rather, so early in the morning. And, again, the manner of it was curious.