“What have you done, then?”
“I have done only what I have been doing blamelessly, because no one ever suspected it, for five-and-twenty years. Now it has been found out.”
“You have been doing something disgraceful for five-and-twenty years, and now you have been found out. Well, why have you come to me? Is it to get my sympathy for disgracing your name?”
“You don’t understand, Leonard.”
He lost his temper.
“How the devil am I to understand if you won’t explain? You say that you are disgraced——”
“Let me tell you all—everything—from the beginning. It came from knocking about London with my brother Fred. He was a devil: he didn’t care what he did. So we ran through our money—it wasn’t much—and Fred went away.”
“I have heard why. A most shameful business.”
“Truly, yes. I always told him so. Since he came home, however, we have agreed not to mention it.”
“Go on. You were left with no money.”