"What, in the name of wonder, did you
suppose yourself to be that you are not?" was
the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful frankness,
inviting confidence from a more reticent
man. "I may ask without impertinence, now
that we are partners."

"There again!" cried Wilding, leaning back
in his chair, with a lost look at the other.
"Partners! I had no right to come into this
business. It was never meant for me. My
mother never meant it should be mine. I mean,
his mother meant it should be his—if I mean
anything —or if I am anybody."

"Come, come," urged his partner, after a
moment's pause, and taking possession of him
with that calm confidence which inspires a
strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a
weak one. "Whatever has gone wrong, has
gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am
very sure. I was not in this counting-house
with you under the old régime, for three years,
to doubt you, Wilding. We were not younger
men than we are, together, for that. Let me
begin our partnership by being a serviceable
partner, and setting right whatever is wrong.
Has that letter anything to do with it?"

"Hah!" said Wilding, with his hand to his
temple. "There again! My head! I was
forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss
postmark."

"At a second glance I see that the letter is
unopened, so it is not very likely to have much
to do with the matter," said Vendale, with
comforting composure. "Is it for you, or for us?"

"For us," said Wilding.

"Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get
it out of our way?"

"Thank you, thank you."

"The letter is only from our champagne-
making friends, the House at Neuchâtel.
'Dear Sir. We are in receipt of yours of the
28th ult., informing us that you have taken
your Mr. Vendale into partnership, whereon we
beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations.
Permit us to embrace the occasion of
specially commending to you, M. Jules
Obenreizer.' Impossible!"

Wilding looked up in quick apprehension,
and cried, "Eh?"

"Impossible sort of name," returned his
partner, slightly—" Obenreizer. '—Of specially
commending to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of
Soho-square, London (north side), henceforth
fully accredited as our agent, and who has
already had the honour of making the
acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M.
Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.'
To be sure: pooh pooh, what have I been thinking
of! I remember now; 'when travelling
with his niece.'

"With his—?" Vendale had so slurred the
last word, that Wilding had not heard it.

"When travelling with his Niece. Obenreizer's
Niece," said Vendale, in a somewhat
superfluously lucid manner. "Niece of Obenreizer.
(I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a
little with them, and lost them for two years;
met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and
have lost them ever since.) Obenreizer. Niece of
Obenreizer. To be sure! Possible sort of name,
after all! 'M. Obenreizer is in possession of
our absolute confidence, and we do not doubt
you will esteem his merits.' Duly signed by
the House, 'Defresnier et Cie.' Very well.
I undertake to see M. Obenreizer presently,
and clear him out of the way. That clears
the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now,
my dear Wilding, tell me what I can clear out
of your way, and I'll find a way to clear it."

More than ready and grateful to be thus taken
charge of, the honest wine-merchant wrung his
partner's hand, and, beginning his tale by
pathetically declaring himself an Impostor, told it.

"It was on this matter, no doubt, that you
were sending for Bintrey when I came in?"
said his partner, after reflecting.

"It was."

"He has experience and a shrewd head; I
shall be anxious to know his opinion. It is
bold and hazardous in me to give you mine
before I know his, but I am not good at holding
back. Plainly, then, I do not see these
circumstances as you see them. I do not see
your position as you see it. As to your being
an Impostor, my dear Wilding, that is simply
absurd, because no man can be that without
being a consenting party to an imposition.
Clearly you never were so. As to your enrichment
by the lady who believed you to be her
son, and whom you were forced to believe, on
her own showing, to be your mother, consider
whether that did not arise out of the personal
relations between you. You gradually became
much attached to her; she gradually became
much attached to you. It was on you,
personally you, as I see the case, that she
conferred these worldly advantages; it was from
her, personally her, that you took them."

"She supposed me," objected Wilding,
shaking his head, "to have a natural claim upon
her, which I had not."

"I must admit that," replied his partner,
"to be true. But if she had made the
discovery that you have made, six months before
she died, do you think it would have cancelled
the years you were together, and the tenderness
that each of you had conceived for the
other, each on increasing knowledge of the
other?"

"What I think," said Wilding, simply but
stoutly holding to the bare fact, "can no more
change the truth than it can bring down the sky.
The truth is that I stand possessed of what was
meant for another man."

"He may be dead," said Vendale.

"He may be alive," said Wilding. "And if
he is alive, have I not—innocently, I grant you
innocently—robbed him of enough? Have I
not robbed him of all the happy time that I
enjoyed in his stead? Have I not robbed him
of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when
that dear lady," stretching his hand towards the
picture, " told me she was my mother? Have
I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on
me? Have I not even robbed him of all the
devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to