'There's no use denying it, Humphrey, I acted like a mean hound; but what was I to do? I was always so infernally hard up. I brought the old boy to his bearings, and made him confess that he had acted a ruffian's part. And then I ought to have killed him, I suppose. But I didn't. He pointed out to me that Alice was in perfect ignorance of her real position, that to be informed of it would probably be her death. And then--he is a tremendously knowing old bird--he made certain suggestions about improving my financial position and getting me regular employment, and giving me a certain sum of money down, so that somehow I listened to him more quietly than I was at first disposed to do. Not that I wasn't excessively indignant on Alice's account. Don't make any mistake about that. I told old Calverley that he had done her a wrong which must be set right, so far as lay in his power; and I made him write out a paper at my dictation and sign it in full, with his head-clerk as witness to the signature. Of course the clerk did not know the contents of the document, but he saw his master sign it, and put his own name as witness. This was done two-days ago, just at the time when they had been writing a lot of letters in the office about my taking up their agency in Ceylon, and no doubt he thought it had something to do with that. I shall enclose that paper in this letter, and you can use it in case of need. Not that I think old Calverley will go away from his word; in the first place, because, notwithstanding this rascally trick he has played poor Alice, he seems a decent kind of fellow; and in the next, because he would be afraid to, so long as I am to the fore. But something might happen to him or to me, and then the paper would be useful.
'Here is the whole story, Humphrey, confided to your common sense and judgment, to act with as you think best, by
'Your old friend,
'TOM DURHAM.'
'Something has happened to both of them,' said Humphrey Statham, solemnly, picking up the paper which had fluttered to the ground. 'Now let us look at the enclosure:
'I, John Calverley, merchant, of Mincing-lane and Great Walpole-street, do hereby freely confess that having made the acquaintance of Alice Durham, to whom I represented myself as a bachelor of the name of Claxton, I married the said Alice Durham at the church of Saint Nicholas, at Ousegate, in the city of York, I being, at the same time, a married man; and having a wife then, and now, living. And I solemnly swear, and hereby set forth, that the said Alice Durham, now known as Alice Claxton, was deceived by me, had no knowledge of my former marriage, or of my name being other than that which I gave her, but fully and firmly believes herself to be my true and lawful wife.
'This I swear,
'JOHN CALVERLEY.
'Witness, 'THOMAS JEFFREYS,
'Head Clerk to Messrs. Calverley and Co.'