"Bare, absolutely bare! This is awful. 'To err is human, to forgive divine!'" He raised his hat about an inch from his head, possibly under the impression that it was a text which he was quoting. "I came into this house with my heart beating high with hope, filled with the milk of human kindness, and it ends in this. It seems absurd to pawn a watch within four-and-twenty hours of buying it, though I certainly never should have bought it had I foreseen that I should receive such treatment. Might I ask you to oblige me with the loan of a sovereign to keep me going till I receive my remittances on Monday?" "Better not. Your request would only meet with a refusal." "Would it? That does finish it, that does. I'm off." I thought that this time he was off finally, but scarcely was he off than he was back again. He came hurrying towards me across the room. "I say, Tennant, I'm actually without a cab fare. Lend me five shillings, there's a trump." "I will not lend you fivepence." "You won't, won't you? Now we do know where we are." He glared about in his best tragedy style. "Perhaps you will give me back that handkerchief you borrowed." Lucy interposed. "I shall not." "You won't? Do you mean to steal it? Is it your intention to add theft to the rest of the family crimes?" "I mean to keep it as evidence." "As evidence? What do you mean?" "As evidence of your being an accessory after the fact. If you take my advice, with the proceeds of the pawning of the watch which you purchased with my husband's money, you will remove yourself as far from the reach of the police as you conveniently can." He put his hand up to his chin, as if pondering her words. "If you will lend me----" Lucy cut him short. She threw the door wide open. "I will lend you nothing. Now go--unless you wish me to send for the police." He looked at her, not seeming to like what he saw. He scowled his finest scowl. "Go? Oh yes, I'll go." He cast his eyes up towards the ceiling. "Ingratitude, thy name is woman!" Then down to me--"Not to mention man." He began to button up his overcoat as if in a hurry. "I'll be even with some one over this, you see if I don't." Then he went finally. We heard him stamping down the stairs; then we heard him shut the hall door behind him with a clatter and a bang as he went out into the street. CHAPTER IX. FOR THE SECOND TIME. Lucy turned to me as soon as it was quite clear that the fellow had gone. "Now get up and dress, and go at once to some great lawyer and tell him everything. To whom shall you go?" "My dear! At this time of day? By the time that I reach town they'll have all gone home." Lucy looked at me in that freezing fashion which has always struck me as being so singularly unsympathetic. "What do you propose to do?" "Well, my dear, I think I'll get up and dress, if you don't mind, and have a little dinner." "Dinner?"