Page:The Cornhill magazine (Volume 1).djvu/343

 "But you don't think he has been unfair to you."

"Mark, to tell you the truth I have banished the affair from my mind, and don't wish to take it up again. My mother has paid the money to save the property, and of course I must pay her back. But I think I may promise that I will not have any more money dealings with Sowerby. I will not say that he is dishonest, but at any rate he is sharp."

"Well, Lufton; what will you say when I tell you that I have put my name to a bill for him, for four hundred pounds."

"Say; why I should say; but you're joking; a man in your position would never do such a thing."

"But I have done it."

Lord Lufton gave a long low whistle.

"He asked me the last night that I was there, making a great favour of it, and declaring that no bill of his had ever yet been dishonoured."

Lord Lufton whistled again. "No bill of his dishonoured! Why the pocket-books of the Jews are stuffed full of his dishonoured papers! And you have really given him your name for four hundred pounds?"

"I have certainly."

"At what date?"

"Three months."

"And have you thought where you are to get the money?"

"I know very well that I can't get it; not at least by that time. The bankers must renew it for me, and I must pay it by degrees. That is, if Sowerby really does not take it up."

"It is just as likely that he will take up the national debt."

Robarts then told him about the projected marriage with Miss Dunstable, giving it as his opinion that the lady would probably accept the gentleman.

"Not at all improbable," said his lordship, "for Sowerby is an agreeable fellow; and if it be so, he will have all that he wants for life. But his creditors will gain nothing. The duke, who has his title-deeds, will doubtless get his money, and the estate will in fact belong to the wife. But the small fry, such as you, will not get a shilling."

Poor Mark! He had had an inkling of this before; but it had hardly presented itself to him in such certain terms. It was, then, a positive fact, that in punishment for his weakness in having signed that bill he would have to pay, not only four hundred pounds, but four hundred pounds with interest, and expenses of renewal, and commission, and bill stamps. Yes; he had certainly got among the Philistines during that visit of his to the duke. It began to appear to him pretty clearly that it would have been better for him to have relinquished altogether the glories of Chaldicotes and Gatherum Castle.

And now, how was he to tell his wife?