“He's not your son--At least,” he added with an ugly smile, “I presume not. I have trained him as I have thought judicious. I am a judicious man.” “You 're a damned thief,” said Matthew. Usher waved his hand towards the door. “I think you had better go. I do not like to see an old man so carried away by passion. It will shorten your life. I am always calm.” Matthew regarded him for a moment, astounded. Then he spoke in blazing anger: “_You_ show _me_ the door? _You?_ Sit down in that chair at once.” Usher obeyed. “There! I stay in this house as long as I choose. It is mine,--everything in it paid for with my heart's blood. By God, if we were younger men, I should thrash you within an ace of your life! Now then--let me see your passbooks for the last six years. Give them to me at once, I say.” Instinctively Usher shrank before Matthew's tone of authority. He rose, whimpering allusions to his own poverty and Matthew's domineering ways, and extracted a set of vellum-covered books from a safe in a corner of the room. Matthew threw his hat and stick upon a chair, and sat down, by the round table on which Usher had laid the books. The latter resumed his armchair on the opposite side and watched him furtively as he scanned the pages with practised eye and bent brows. When Matthew was dangerous, he had no power to resist. The craven within him yielded to the stronger personality. But he hated Matthew with a deadlier hatred. Even now, in the moment of his humiliation, there was a gleam in his eyes of a revengeful joy at the imperious man's discovery of the manner in which he had been fooled for years past. He rubbed his palms softly together beneath the level of the table. There was a dead silence, broken only by the faint rustling of the leaves as Matthew turned them over. At last, when he had looked through the books, he rose and returned his glasses to their little leather case. His face was gray and peaked. There on the table lay incontrovertible proof that his life's atonement had been frustrated, that instead of smoothing Roderick's path, he had merely been pandering to Usher's senile vices. A whole fortune had gone in insane speculations, rotten companies for the exploitation of imaginary mines, futile inventions, wild-cat schemes. Here and there were amounts for £100, £200, paid to names which he recognised as those of great postage-stamp dealers. Not once had a cheque been drawn payable to Roderick. On the credit side were two large sums which he himself had paid to extricate Roderick from special difficulties. On the debit side was nothing to correspond. He felt stricken with sudden age. But he drew himself up haughtily lest Usher should see his despair. “And you have been lying, I perceive,” said he, “when you have come to me for money to pay Roderick's debts,--or else you haven't paid them.” “I have paid them all--all his debts--with securities, Matthew. That is why nothing is in my pass-book.”