The footman knocked at the door.  “A young man wanting to speak to master on particular business.

“Let him send in his name.”

“He says you wouldn’t know it, Sir.”

“Show him in, then.  Probably a case of charity, as usual.  Oh!”

And Mr. Ascott’s opinion was confirmed by the appearance of the shabby young man with the long beard, whom Elizabeth did not wonder he never recognized in the least.  She ought to have retired, and yet she could not.  She hid herself partly behind the door, afraid of passing Ascott; dreading alike to wound him by recognition or non-recognition.  But he took no notice.  He seemed excessively agitated.

“Come a-begging, young man, I suppose?  Wants a situation, as hundreds do, and think that I have half the clerkships in the city at my disposal, and that I am made of money besides.  But it’s no good, I tell you, Sir; I never give nothing to strangers, except—­Here, Henry, my son, take that person there this half crown.”

And the little boy, in his pretty purple velvet frock and his prettier face, trotted across the room and put the money into poor Ascott’s hand.  He took it; and then to the astonishment of Master Henry, and the still greater astonishment of his father, lifted up the child and kissed him.

“Young man, young fellow—­”

“I see you don’t know me, Mr. Ascott, and it’s not surprising.  But I have come to repay you this—­” he laid a fifty pound note down on the table.  “Also, to thank you earnestly for not prosecuting me, and to say—­”

“Good God!”—­the sole expletive Peter Ascott had been heard to use for long.  “Ascott Leaf, is that you?  I thought you were in Australia, or dead, or something.”

“No, I’m alive and here, more’s the pity perhaps.  Except that I have lived to pay you back what I cheated you out of.  What you generously gave me I can’t pay, though I may sometime.  Meantime, I have brought you this.  It’s honestly earned.  Yes.” observing the keen doubtful look, “though I have hardly a coat to my back, I assure you it’s honestly earned.”

Mr. Ascott made no reply.  He stooped over the bank-note, examined it, folded it, and put it into his pocket-book; then, after another puzzled investigation of Ascott, cleared his throat.

“Mrs. Hand, you had better take Master Henry up stairs.”

An hour after, when little Henry had long been sound asleep, and she was sitting at her usual evening sewing in her solitary nursery, Elizabeth learned that the “shabby young man” was still in the dining-room with Mr. Ascott, who had rung for tea, and some cold meat with it.  And the footman stated, with undisguised amazement, that the shabby young man was actually sitting at the same table with master!

Elizabeth smiled to herself and held her tongue.  Now, as ever, she always kept the secrets of the family.

About ten o’clock she was summoned to the dining-room.