"No, no! For heaven's sake don't say that!" "I do say it," cried the old man impetuously, "she and her mother too. How can they help it with such surroundings? The decent people will not go--only that Eaton and Mrs Otway. Bless the woman! I thought her a forward, shameless soldier's wife, but she has the heart of a true lady, and keeps to the Hallams in spite of all." "It is very horrible," said Bayle; "but we are helpless." "Helpless? Yes; if he would only kill himself with his wretched drink, or get made an end of somehow." "Hush!" said Bayle, rather sternly; "don't talk like that." "Now you are beginning to bully me, Bayle," cried the old man querulously. "Don't you turn against me. I get insults enough at that scoundrel Hallam's--enough to make my blood boil." "Yes, I know, I know," said Bayle. "And yet, old idiot that I am, I go there for the sake of these women, and bear it all--I, whom people call a gentleman, I go there and am civil to the scoundrel who robbed me, and put up with his insolence and his scowls. But I'm his master still. He dare not turn upon me. I can make him quail when I like. Bayle, old fellow," he cried, with a satisfied chuckle, "how the scoundrel would like to give me a dose!" Bayle sat down with his brow full of the lines of care. "I'm not like you," continued Sir Gordon, whom the relation of his troubles seemed to relieve, "I won't be driven away. I think you were wrong." "No," said Bayle quietly, "it was causing her pain. It was plain enough that in his sordid mind my presence was a greater injury than yours. He was wearing her life away, and I thought it better that our intimacy should grow less and less." "But, my boy, that's where you were wrong. Bad as the scoundrel is, he could never have had a jealous thought of that saint--there, don't call me irreverent--I say it again, that saint of a woman." "Oh, no, I can't think that myself," said Bayle, "but my presence was a standing reproach to him." "How could it be more than mine?" "You are different. He always hated me from the first time we met at King's Castor." "I believe he did," said Sir Gordon warmly; "but see how he detests the sight of me." "Yes, but you expressed the feeling only a few minutes ago when you said you were still his master and you made him quail. My dear old friend, if I could ever have indulged in a hope that Robert Hallam had been unjustly punished, his behaviour towards you would have swept it away. It is always that of the conscience-stricken man--his unreasoning dislike of the one whom he has wronged." "Perhaps you are right, Bayle, perhaps you are right. But there was no doubt about his guilt--a scoundrel, and I am as sure as I am that I live, the rascal made a hoard somehow, and is living upon it now." "You think that? What about the sealing speculation?"