“By heaven,” he muttered, “I understand it now!--They saw it--that look on his face!--By Jove!--But no; she never saw _her_!--She must have heard something about him then!--They didn't treat you well, I believe!” he said: “--turned you away at a moment's notice!--I hope they took that into consideration when they paid you?” “I made no complaint, sir. I never asked why I was dismissed!” “But they made it up to you--didn't they?” “I don't submit to ill usage, sir.” “That's right! I'm glad you made them pay for it!” “To take money for ill usage is to submit to it, it seems to me!” said Richard. “By Jove, there are not many would call money ill usage!--Well, it wasn't right, and I'll have nothing to do with it!--Here,” he went on, wheeling round to the table, and drawing his cheque-book toward him, “I will give you another cheque for yourself.” “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Richard, “but I can take nothing for myself! Don't you see, sir?--As soon as I was gone, you would think I had after all come for my own sake!” “I won't, I promise you. I think you a very honest fellow!” “Then, sir, please continue to think me so, and don't offer me money!” “Lest you should be tempted to take it?” “No; lest I should annoy you by the use I made of it!” “Tut, tut! I don't care what you do with it! You can't annoy me!” He wrote a second cheque, blotted it, then finished the other, and held out both to Richard. “I can't give you so much as the other poor beggars; you haven't the same claim upon me!” he said. Richard took the cheques, looked at them, put the larger in his pocket, walked to the fire, and placed the other in the hottest cavern of it. “By Jove!” cried the baronet, and again stared at him: he had seen his mother do precisely the same thing--with the same action, to the very turn of her hand, and with the same choice of the central gulf of fire! Richard turned to sir Wilton, and would have thanked him again on behalf of Alice and Arthur, but something got up in his throat, and, with a grateful look and a bend of the head, he made for the door speechless. “I say, I say, my lad!” cried sir Wilton, and Richard stopped. “There's something in this,” the baronet went on, “more than I understand! I would give a big cheque to know what is in your mind! What does it all mean?” Richard looked at him, but said nothing: he was in some sort fascinated by the old man's gaze. “Suppose now,” said sir Wilton, “I were to tell you I would do whatever you asked me so far as it was in my power--what would you say?” “That I would ask you for nothing,” answered Richard. “I make the promise; I say solemnly that I will give you whatever you ask of me--provided I can do it honestly,” said the baronet. “What a damned fool I am!” he thought with himself. “The devil is in me to let the fellow walk over me like this! But I must know what it all means! I shall find some way out of it!”