'After all, however, I do not see that I need inflict a true and particular history of my life and adventures upon a man so busied as yourself. It would not be very edifying reading, my dear Statham, nor do I imagine that being mixed up in any way with my affairs would be likely to do you much good with the governor of the Bank of England or the directors of Lloyd's. I scarcely know how you, a steady, prosperous man of business, ever managed to continue your friendship with a harum-scarum fellow like myself! It was all very well in the early days when we were lads together, and you were madly in love with that Leeds milliner-girl'--Humphrey Statham's voice changed as he read the passage--'but now you are settled and respectable, and I am as great a ne'er-do-weel as ever. 'Not quite so great, perhaps, you will think, when you see that I am going to try to make amends for one wrong which I have done. I shall not bother you with anything else, my dear Statham; but I will leave this one matter in your hands, and I am sure that if any question about it ever arises, you will look to it and see it put straight for the sake of our old friendship, and don't break down or give it up because I seem to come out rather rough at the first, dear old man. Read it through, and stand by me. 'You do not know--nor any one else scarcely, for the matter of that--that I have a half-sister, the sweetest, prettiest, dearest, and most innocent little creature that ever shed sunshine on a household. She didn't shed it long on ours though; for as soon as she was old enough, she was sent away to earn her own living, which she did by becoming governess in a Quaker's family at York. I was fond of her--very fond in my odd way--but I never saw much of her, as I was always rambling about; and when, after a return from an absence of many months, I heard that Alice was married to an elderly man named Claxton, who was well off, and lived in comfort near London, I thought it was a good job for her, and troubled myself but little more about the matter. 'But one day, no matter how, my suspicions were aroused. I made inquiries, and--to cut the matter short--I discovered that the respectable Mr. Claxton, to whom I had heard Alice was married, was a City merchant, whose real name was Calverley, and who had already a wife. I never doubted Alice for a moment; I knew the girl too well for that. I felt certain this old scoundrel had deceived her, and, as they say in the States, "I went for him."