“You like it, uncle?”
“Yes, and I like the manly way he owned to it. If he had prevaricated about it, I’d never have forgiven him.”
After this Adrian did not dare to confess. It was too bad. Here were both his uncle and Dora admiring Peter for his poems, and crediting Peter with candor and courage. He was to lose both fame and Dora! It was certainly too much. A sudden thought struck him. He went to town, called on Peter, and, as the police reports say, “made a communication” to him.
“It makes me look a scoundrel,” objected Peter.
“Two hundred—at six months,” suggested Adrian.
“And she is a nice girl—— No, I’m dashed——”
“A monkey at three!” cried Adrian.
“Done!” said Peter.
It was a sad tale of depravity on one side, and of self-sacrificing friendship on the other, that Mr. Pottles and Dora Chatterton listened to that evening.
“He had made,” said Adrian sadly, “a deliberate attempt to rob me of my fame before, and he repeated it. And yet, uncle, an old friend—boyhood’s companion—how could I betray him? It was weak, but I could not. I stood by, and let him deceive you.”