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158 said the indignant Peter. "Why, I never heard of the gentleman!"

"Denial will not serve you now," she said. "I have not only your own admissions in the music-room, but the evidence of more than one trustworthy witness, to prove that you circulated a report that my dear father—one of the most honored and respected citizens of Melbourne—began his Colonial career as—as a transported convict!"

After all, as the hapless Peter instantly saw, he might have said so, for anything he knew, in one of those still unexhausted extra quarters of an hour!

"If I said so, I was misinformed," he said.

"Just so; and in our conversation on the subject, you mentioned the name of the person who used you as his mouthpiece to disseminate his malicious venom. What I wish to know now is, whether you are prepared or not to repeat that statement?"

Peter recollected now that he had used expressions implicating Mr. Perkins, although merely as the origin of totally different complications.