"Yes, Mr. Dale; I fear it is all true."
"And you call that man your friend! Mr.—; I don't know what your name is."
"Pratt;—Fowler Pratt. I have known Crosbie for fourteen years,—ever since he was a boy; and it is not my way, Mr. Dale, to throw over an old friend under any circumstances."
"Not if he committed a murder."
"No; not though he committed a murder."
"If what I hear is true, this man is worse than a murderer."
"Of course, Mr. Dale, I cannot know what you have heard. I believe that Mr. Crosbie has behaved very badly to your niece, Miss Dale; I believe that he was engaged to marry her, or, at any rate, that some such proposition had been made."
"Proposition! Why, sir, it was a thing so completely understood that everybody knew it in the county. It was so positively fixed that there was no secret about it. Upon my honour, Mr. Pratt, I can't as yet understand it. If I remember right, it's not a fortnight since he left my house at Allington,—not a fortnight. And that poor girl was with him on the morning of his going as his betrothed bride. Not a fortnight since! And now I've had a letter from an old family friend telling me that he is going to marry one of Lord De Courcy's daughters! I went instantly off to Courcy, and found that he had started for London. Now, I have followed him here; and you tell me it's all true."
"I am afraid it is, Mr. Dale; too true."
"I don't understand it; I don't, indeed. I cannot bring myself to believe that the man who was sitting the other day at my table should be so great a scoundrel. Did he mean it all the time that he was there?"