and make his confession. Alas! we were too late. The coat had been
moved, the paper had fallen out; and there stood my mother with it
in her hand, looking at Clarence with an awful stony face of mute
grief and reproach, while he stammered forth what he had said
before, and that he was about to give it to my father. She turned
away, bitterly, contemptuously indignant and incredulous; and my
corroborations only served to give both her and my father a certain
dread of Clarence's influence over me, as though I had been either
deceived or induced to back him in deceiving them. The unlucky
incident plunged him back into the depths, just as he had begun to
emerge. Slight as it was, it was no trifle to him, in spite of
Griffith's exclamation, 'How absurd! Is a fellow to be bound to
give an account of everything he looks at as if he were six years
old? Catch me letting my mother pry into my pockets! But you are
too meek, Bill; you perfectly invite them to make a row about
nothing!'



CHAPTER VII--THE INHERITANCE



'For he that needs five thousand pound to live
Is full as poor as he that needs but five.
But if thy son can make ten pound his measure,
Then all thou addest may be called his treasure.'

GEORGE HERBERT.