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292 pound—twenty thousand, when ten's worth more to me than a hundred was a twelvemonth since!"

Ffrench quailed like a woman.

"Are—are you going to murder me?" he said. "You look as if you were."

Haworth turned on his heel.

"You're not worth it," he answered, "or I'd do it, by the Lord Harry."

Then he came back to him.

"I've paid enow for what I've never had, by George," he said, with bitter grimness.

"For what you have——" Ffrench began.

Haworth stopped him by flinging himself down in a chair near him—so near that their faces were brought within uncomfortably close range of each other. There was no avoiding his eye.

"You know what," he sneered. "None better."

"I——" Ffrench faltered.

"Blast you!" said Haworth. "You played her like bait to a fish—in your gentleman's fashion."

Ffrench felt a little sick. It was not unnatural that he should. A man of refined instincts likes less than any other man to be confronted brutally with the fact that he has, however delicately, tampered with a coarseness.

Haworth went on.

"You knew how to do it, and you did it—gentleman way. You knew me and you knew I was hard hit and you knew I'd make a big throw. That was between us two, though we never said a word. I'd never give up a thing in my life before and I was mad for her. She knew how to hold me off and gave me plenty to think of. What else had you, my lad? 'Haworth's' didn't want a gentleman; 'Haworth's' didn't want brass, and you'd none to give if