'I acknowledge a debt of £5,000.'

'It is imperative that £10,000 should at once be repaid.'

'I have no objection in life.'

'I can sell my shares in the Limehouse bridge,' continued Alaric, 'for £6,000, and I am prepared to do so.'

'The more fool you,' said Undy,' if you do it; especially as £6,000 won't pay £10,000, and as the same property, if overheld another month or two, in all probability will do so.'

'I am ready to sacrifice that and more than that,' said Alaric. 'If you will sell out £4,000, and let me at once have that amount, so as to make up the full sum I owe, I will make you a free present of the remainder of the debt. Come, Undy, you cannot but call that a good thing. You will have pocketed two thousand pounds, according to the present market value of the shares, and that without the slightest risk.'

Undy for a while seemed staggered by the offer. Whether it was Alaric's extreme simplicity in making it, or his own good luck in receiving it, or whether by any possible chance some all but dormant remnant of feeling within his heart was touched, we will not pretend to say. But for a while he walked on silent, as though wavering in his resolution, and looking as if he wished to be somewhat more civil, somewhat less of the bully, than he had been.

There was no one else to whom Alaric could dare to open his heart on this subject of his ward's fortune; there was none other but this ally of his to whom he could confide, whom he could consult. Unpromising, therefore, though Undy was as a confederate, Alaric, when he thought he saw this change in his manner, poured forth at once the full tide of his feelings.

'Undy,' said he, 'pray bear with me a while. The truth is, I cannot endure this misery any longer. I do not now want to blame anyone but myself. The thing has been done, and it is useless now to talk of blame. The thing has been done, and all that now remains for me is to undo it; to put this girl's money back again, and get this horrid weight from off my breast.'

'Upon my word, my dear fellow, I did not think that you took it in such a light as that,' said Undy.