He was so simple as he stood, almost so childish, taking the awful missive, of the nature of which he had no understanding, which meant ruin, shame, everything that was dreadful, into his hand so innocently, that there came from the breast of the spectator standing by--the only being whom the boy feared--a suppressed but irrestrainable groan of emotion. Yet Evelyn felt that to her husband his son’s ignorance meant nothing but acting, a consummate deceit, got up beforehand, the result of guilty expectation, not of innocent ignorance. “Mind, how you drive me wild!” Rowland said hoarsely. “I give you yet a place of repentance. For your mother’s sake, and for my wife’s sake, who is not your mother--own to it like a man even now--and I’ll forgive you yet.” Archie’s unconsciousness was almost foolish, as he stood there with the thing in his hand. Evelyn, trembling from head to foot in her own impatience and anxiety, could scarcely bear it. “Oh speak, speak!” she cried under her breath. “Own to what?” the boy said. “A place of repentance--for what?” His consternation and amazement were clear enough; only to his father they seemed the deepest deceit. “Down upon your knees!” he cried, springing to his feet. “Do you know what that means?--not mere cheating of your father, which perhaps was all you thought of; it means the ruin of your whole life; it means penal servitude--a little while ago it meant death. Go down on your knees and ask my pardon. I will never trust you again, nor will I ever have a happy moment, knowing what you are; but I will forgive you, as far as the world is concerned, and hide your shame.” Evelyn, whom her husband had thrown off in his hurried movement, stood wringing her hands, her tears dropping upon them, her countenance convulsed with terror and pity. “Oh speak to him, Archie, tell him, tell him!” she said. Then the poor young fellow came fully to life, though even now he did not quite understand what it was he was accused of. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said; “for there is nothing in the world that can mean penal servitude to me. You are mad, I think, father. I have done nothing to ruin my life--Me! what could I have done--what has been in my power? If I were as bad in nature as you think me--what, what has been in my power?” “Archie,” said Rowland, recovering his composure by a great effort; “I want no useless talk. Let’s understand all that as said. Self-defence is out of the question. If you will tell me as humbly as you can what led you to such a crime as forgery, perhaps--God forgive you, I’ll try to think the best--thinking less of it because it was your father----” “Forgery!” cried Archie with a great shout, as if to earth and heaven.