“The necessity is indeed a grievous one; but it is a relief to have someone to unburden my mind to. It was not till the evening of the day before yesterday that sundry of Lewis’s shortcomings were brought under my notice, of which I had hitherto been purposely kept in ignorance. It appears that Trant, my butler, has a nephew who is billiard marker at the _King’s Head_ hotel in Mapleford. The two had not seen each other for some months till they met the other day. Then the young man revealed to his uncle certain facts which the latter deemed it his duty at once to lay before me. It seems that on two or three afternoons in each week, presumably when his lessons are over at the vicarage, where he generally stays for luncheon, Lewis finds his way to the billiard room in question, which at that hour of the day is frequented by a number of idle and fast young men, where he poses as the grandson of Sir Gilbert Clare, and the great man of the company, treating all who care to drink at his expense, in other words, everybody who happens to be there. Nor is that all. One revelation led to another, and a little questioning on my part elicited the fact that, for some weeks past, Lewis has been in the habit, after he was supposed to have retired for the night, of stealing out of the house by one of the back entrances and making his way to the saddle-room, where he and Snell, a groom whom I took into my service about a year ago (for I keep a couple of horses still, although I make very little use of them), are in the habit of hobnobbing together over short pipes and whisky till long after midnight. Needless to say, Snell was packed off at a moment’s notice, although I hold that he was by far the less blameworthy of the two.” “This is dreadful. Have you spoken to your grandson?” “Not yet—not yet,” answered Sir Gilbert a little wearily, “I have, perhaps weakly, delayed doing so. It is not merely a question of what I ought to say to him; that is a very simple matter—but of what I ought to do, in short, of what steps it behoves me to take in order to break him of his wretched propensities at once and for ever. That he will make me all sorts of fine promises I do not doubt, but can I trust his promises? I am afraid not. At the time he may fully intend to keep them, but the moment temptation comes in his way they will be powerless to restrain him. Of late I have made it my business to study him. He puzzled me at first, but after Trant’s revelation—well, well!” He was silent and sat rubbing one hand slowly and softly within the other, a look of perplexity and distress clouding his grand old features. Then after a pause he added with an unwonted quaver in his voice: “He is my grandson and I cannot cast him adrift. To do so now, to relegate him to the position from which I raised him, would merely be to put a premium on his ruin.” To this Lady Pell apparently found nothing to reply.