' I was actuated by motives which I think do me honor. My
position at the time was critical in the extreme. My credit with the
money-lenders was at an end; my friends had all turned their backs on
me. I must either take the money or disgrace my family. If there is a
man living who is sincerely attached to his family, I am that man. I
took the money.
"Conceive your position as my aunt (I say nothing of myself), if I had
adopted the other alternative. Turned out of the Jockey Club, turned
out of Tattersalls', turned out of the betting-ring; in short, posted
publicly as a defaulter before the noblest institution in England, the
Turf--and all for want of five hundred pounds to stop the mouth of
the greatest brute I know of, Alfred Hardyman! Let me not harrow your
feelings (and mine) by dwelling on it. Dear and admirable woman! To
you belongs the honor of saving the credit of the family; I can claim
nothing but the inferior merit of having offered you the opportunity.
"My IOU, it is needless to say, accompanies these lines. Can I do
anything for you abroad?--F. S."
To this it is only necessary to add (first) that Moody was perfectly
right in believing F. S. to be the person who informed Hardyman's father
of Isabel's position when she left Lady Lydiard's house; and (secondly)
that Felix did really forward Mr. Troy's narrative of the theft to
the French police, altering nothing in it but the number of the lost
bank-note.
What is there left to write about? Nothing is left--but to say good-by
(very sorrowfully on the writer's part) to the Persons of the Story.
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