"Not sins," she said gently. "Mistakes."
"Mistakes, yes—you are right." He stretched out a hand, took a letter from the desk in front of him and gave it to her. "Read that." With a groan he buried his head in his hands again. She took it and read, slowly and wonderingly, these words:—
"To lawn-mower as delivered, £5 17s. 6d."
Lord Blight looked up with an impatient ejaculation "Give it to me," he said in some annoyance, snatching it away from her and throwing it into the waste-paper basket. "Here, this is the one. Read it; read it quickly; for we must decide what to do."
She read it with starting eyes.
"DEAR SIR,—I am prepared to lend you anything from £10 to £10,000 on your note-of-hand alone. Should you wish—"
"D—n!" said the seventeenth Earl of Blight. "Here, where is the blessed thing?" He felt in his pockets. "I must have—I only had it a—Ah, here it is. Perhaps I had better read it to you this time." He put on his spectacles—a present from an aunt—and read as follows:—
"MY LORD,—We regret to inform you that a claimant to the title has arisen. It seems that, soon after the death of his first wife, the sixteenth Earl of Blight contracted a second and secret marriage to Ellen Podby, by whom he had eleven sons, the eldest of whom is now asserting his right to the earldom and estates. Trusting to be favoured with your instructions in the matter, We are, my lord,
"Yours faithfully,
"BILLINGS, BILLINGS & BILLINGS."