"Only think, sir, just as I was saying to myself, 'I know character--I never was taken in,' down comes a smart fellow--the man's own son--and tells me--or rather he suffers a lady who comes with him to tell me--that this charming old gentleman of high sense of honour was a returned convict--been transported for robbing his employer." Pale, breathless, Darrell listened, not unheeding now. "What was the name of--of--" "The convict? He called himself Chapman, but the son's name was Losely-- Jasper." "Ah!" faltered Darrell, recoiling. "And you spoke of a little girl?" "Jasper Losely's daughter; he came after her with a magistrate's warrant. The old miscreant had carried her off,--to teach her his own swindling ways, I suppose." "Luckily she was then in my charge. I gave her back to her father, and the very respectable-looking lady he brought with him. Some relation, I presume." "What was her name, do you remember?" "Crane." "Crane!--Crane!" muttered Darrell, as if trying in vain to tax his memory with that name. "So he said the child was his daughter--are you sure?" "Oh, of course he said so, and the lady too. But can you be acquainted with their, sir?" "I?--no! Strangers to me, except by repute. Liars--infamous liars! But have the accomplices quarrelled--I mean the son and father--that the father should be exposed and denounced by the son?" "I conclude so. I never saw them again. But you believe the father really was, then, a felon, a convict--no excuse for him--no extenuating circumstances? There was something in that man, Mr. Darrell, that made one love him--positively love him; and when I had to tell him that I had given up the child he trusted to my charge, and saw his grief, I felt a criminal myself." Darrell said nothing, but the character of his face was entirely altered --stern, hard, relentless--the face of an inexorable judge. Hartopp, lifting his eyes suddenly to that countenance, recoiled in awe. "You think I was a criminal!" he said, piteously. "I think we are both talking too much, Mr. Hartopp, of a gang of miserable swindlers, and I advise you to dismiss the whole remembrance of intercourse with any of them from your honest breast, and never to repeat to other ears the tale you have poured into mine. Men of honour should crush down the very thought that approaches them to knaves."