“There!  Take some brandy!  You’re too old to play these tricks!  That heart of yours was never worth much in the old days, and I daresay it’s still more groggy.  Besides, we’re not in a mining camp or the backwoods now.”  He sneered.  “We’re in Sir Stephen Orme’s palatial villa on Lake Bryndermere.”

Sir Stephen stretched out his hand and felt for the decanter, as if he were suddenly blind and could not see it, and poured himself out some brandy.  Falconer watched him narrowly, critically.

“Better?  Look here, Orme, take my advice and keep a guard on your emotions:  you can’t afford to have any with a heart like that.”

He paused and waited until Sir Stephen’s ashy face had resumed a less deathly pallor.

“And now I’ll answer your appeal—­I don’t intend to denounce you!”

Sir Stephen turned to him with a gesture of incredulity.

“Sounds strange, doesn’t it?  Humph!  Doesn’t it strike you that I’ve had my revenge already?  If there is a sweeter one than to see the man who has sold you grovelling at your feet, and praying for mercy, than I don’t know it!  The great Sir Stephen Orme, too!” He laughed sneeringly.  “No, if I’d meant to give you away, Orme, I should have done it to-night in your swell drawing-room, with all your swell guests round you, with your son—­ay, and my daughter—­to hear the story—­the story of Black Steve!  But I didn’t mean it, and I don’t—­”

Sir Stephen drew a long breath of relief, and drank some more brandy.

“Thank God!” he murmured.  “What can I say—­what can I do to—­to express my gratitude—­my sense of your forbearance, Falconer?”

Falconer, with his eyes narrowed to slits, looked at him keenly.

“Oh, I’ll dispense with your gratitude, Orme.  We’ll agree to forgive and—­forget.  This is the last word we’ll say about it.”

Sir Stephen, as if he could scarcely believe his ears, gazed at his magnanimous foe in silence.

“No half measures with me—­you remember me of old,” said Falconer.  “The subject’s done with,” he moved his thick hand as he were sweeping it away.  “Pass the whiskey.  Thanks.  Now, let’s have the chat you kept me up for.”

Sir Stephen wiped his lips and forced a smile.

“Tell me about yourself; what you have been doing since we—­er—­all this long time.”

Falconer shrugged his shoulders.  “Oh, it isn’t as interesting a story as yours,” he said.  “I’ve just rubbed along with bad and good luck in streaks; fortunately for me, the good ones were thicker and more frequent than the bad ones.  Lake yourself I married; like yourself, I’m a widower.  I’ve one child—­Maude.  She’s been at school and under the care of some people on the Continent, while I’ve been at work; and I’ve come to England now to settle down.  That tells enough of my story.  I know yours, as the rest of the world does.  You’re famous, you see.”

There was a pause; then he looked over his glass, and said: