"Sophia," he said plaintively, "don't talk of leaving me! What should I do without you? Who would teach me Astronomy and things? You know I don't care for anybody but you! Why will you dwell on such unpleasant subjects?" "I was wrong, Peter," she confessed,--"indeed, I doubt you no longer. It was all my morbid imagination that led me to do you such injustice. Forgive me, and let us say no more about it!" "I do forgive you," was his generous reply to this appeal, which, coming from Sophia, was a very handsome apology, "and we _will_ say no more about it." And, upon the whole, Peter thought he had got out of a particularly tight place with more credit than he had any reason to expect--a conclusion in which the reader, however much he or she may disapprove of his conduct on moral grounds, will probably be inclined to agree with him. CHAPTER VI. Foil and Counterfoil. _The Duties of Authorship.--Peter's Continued Perversity and its Unforeseen Results.--"Alfred."--The Tragic Note.--An Interrupted Crisis.--A Domestic Surprise._ It would be more satisfactory to an author's feelings, especially when he is aware that he will be held accountable by an indignant public for the slightest deviation on his hero's part from the narrow path of ideal rectitude--it would be more satisfactory to be able to record that this latest warning had a permanent effect upon Peter Tourmalin's rather shifty disposition. But an author, even of a modest performance such as this, cannot but feel himself in a position of grave responsibility. He must relate such facts as he has been able to collect, without suppression on the one side, or distortion on the other. It is a duty he cannot and dare not evade, under penalty of forfeiting the confidence of his readers. Peter Tourmalin _did_ draw more Time Cheques, he _did_ go back to the _Boomerang_, and it would be useless to assert the contrary. We may be able to rehabilitate him to some extent before this story concludes: at present, we can only follow his career with pain and disapproval. Some allowances must be made for the peculiar nature of the case. To a person of Peter's natural inclination to the study of psychology, there was a strong fascination in watching the gradual unfolding and revelation of two characters so opposite and so interesting as those of Miss Tyrrell and Miss Davenport. That was the point of view he took himself, and it is difficult to say that such a plea is wholly without plausibility. Then, too, he was intensely curious to know how it would all end, and he might ascertain that in the very next quarter of an hour he drew; there was absolutely no telling.