“Why not, if it was your father’s debt?” asked Katherine, who was keenly interested.

“Because my father would not have taken it, although twenty years before he had paid the fifty pounds out of his own pocket, to save this friend of his from exposure and ruin.  At first I was disposed not to take it either; but, as the man represented to me, I had others dependent on me, and for their sakes I was in duty bound to take it, and to do the best I could for them with it.”

“I think so too,” murmured Katherine; but Mr. Selincourt continued almost as if he had not heard her speak.

“I took the money and banked it with my other savings, feeling rather proud of having such a nest-egg, and making up my mind that when the summer came I would give the girls and the old man such a holiday as they had never even dreamed of before.  Then the blow fell.  I was called into the room of the chief one morning, and asked if I were a gambler.  Of course I said no, and that with a very clear conscience, for I had never been addicted to betting nor card playing in my life.  Then I was asked to explain the lump sum of fifty pounds which I had added to my banking account in the previous week.”

“But I thought that banking accounts were very private and confidential things,” said Katherine.

“So they are supposed to be; but the private affairs of a fellow in my position would be sure to get closely overhauled, and a shrewd bank manager might deem it only his duty to enquire how anyone with my salary and responsibilities could afford to pay in big sums like that,” Mr. Selincourt replied.  “Of course I could not explain how I had come by the money, and to my amazement I was curtly dismissed, and without a character.”

“How horribly cruel!” panted Katherine, whose hands were pressed against her breast, and whose face was deathly white.  No one knew how terribly she suffered then, as she stood there bearing, as it were, the punishment for her father’s guilty silence, while she listened to the story of what his victim had had to endure.

“It did seem cruel, as you say, horribly cruel!” Mr. Selincourt said, a grey hardness spreading over his kindly face, as if the memory of the bitter past was more than he could bear.  “The two years that followed were crammed with poverty and privation; there was almost constant sickness in the home, and I could get no work except occasional jobs of manual labour, at which any drayman or navvy could have beaten me easily, by reason of superior strength.  I left Bristol and went to Cardiff, hoping that I might lose my want of a character in the crowd.  But it was of no use.  ’Give a dog a bad name and hang him’, is one of the truest proverbs we’ve got.  What is the matter, child?” he asked, as an involuntary sob broke from poor Katherine.

“Nothing, nothing; only I am so sorry for you!” she cried, breaking down a little, in spite of her efforts after self-control.