"Yes; he's down in the ruins, seated, like Patience on a broken monument, smoking and smiling at the river. Don't pitch him in. I say: is there a row on?" Richard Frayne did not answer, but walked away, crossed the creek bridge, beneath which the water ran thundering as it hurried toward the river, giving indications that there must have been a heavy rainstorm in the hills twenty miles away, though all was sunshine there. He hurried on along the lane, turned out of it, crossed a couple of fields, and made his way toward a pile of ivy-clad ruins, whose base was washed by the river, now brimful, and here and there making patches and pools in the lower meadows further on. These ruins were the remains of one of the great ecclesiastical buildings dismantled in the days of Bluff King Hal, and still showed the importance of the edifice, with its lancet windows and high walls surrounding a green patch that was at one time an inner garden surrounded by cloisters, of which only a few columns were left, and was now as secluded and lonely a spot as could be found for miles. A visitor would have paused directly to admire the beauty of the old place, which raised up thoughts of the past, but Richard did not stay, for to him it only raised up secular thoughts of the present, with tailors' bills, borrowed money, forgery, and lies. But there was no sign of Mark Frayne; and, growing moment by moment more excited and angry, Richard hurried here and there, looking sharply round, coming to the conclusion that either he had been misinformed or his cousin had gone, when he caught sight of a yellow and black fragment of flannel projecting from behind a pile of stones at the corner farthest away from the swollen river. "The cur!" he muttered, as he hurried forward, leaping over fallen blocks and fragments which showed still the groinings of the old cloisters. "That's like you!" he cried, as he came suddenly upon Mark leaning back in a niche, and who looked first white, then scarlet. "What do you mean? Hiding, like the sneaking coward you are." "You're an idiot! I came here to see the flood rising." "At this end?" cried Richard, contemptuously. "No, you didn't. You hid here because you saw me coming." "What! Hide from you!" cried Mark, defiantly. "I like that! Why should I hide from you, fiddler?" "Because you felt what was coming out, and that I knew the miserable cheating act of which you have been guilty." "Here! what do you mean?" cried Mark, in a bullying tone, as he edged up, scowling, towards him, and looked down upon the meek musician, whom he felt he could at any moment pretty well crush. "I mean that if poor sick Uncle James knew what I have just heard it would break his heart." "I don't want to hear any cant about my father," cried Mark, changing colour a little. "Tell me what you mean, or--" He made a menacing gesture; but, to his surprise, Richard did not shrink. "I mean that that wretched man has been to me about your debts."