“A run for gold!” cried she, suddenly. “An attempt to break the Ossory Bank! What does it all mean? Who are they that make this attack?”
“Opponents—some of them political, some commercial, a few, perhaps, men personally unfriendly,—enemies of what they call my success!” and he sighed heavily on the last word. “Let me see,” said he, slowly, after a pause; “to-day is Thursday—to-morrow will be the 28th—heavy payments are required for the Guatemala Trunk Line,—something more than forty thousand pounds to be made up. The Parma Loan, second instalment, comes on the 80th.”
“Dinner, my Lord,” said a servant, throwing open the door.
“A thousand pardons, Lady Augusta,” said Dunn, offering his arm. “I am really shocked at obtruding these annoyances upon your notice. You see, my Lord,” added he, gayly, “one of the penalties of admitting the 'working-men of life' into your society.”
It was only as they passed on towards the dinner-room that Lord Glengariff noticed Miss Kellett's absence.
“She has a headache or a cold, I believe,” said Lady Augusta, carelessly; and they sat down to dinner.
So long as the servants were present the conversation ranged over commonplace events and topics, little indeed passing, since each seemed too deeply impressed with grave forebodings for much inclination for mere talking. Once alone—and Lord Glengariff took the earliest moment to be so—they immediately resumed the subject of the ill-omened despatch.
“You are, at all events, prepared, Dunn?” said the Earl; “this onslaught does not take you by surprise?”
“I am ashamed to say it does, my Lord,” said he, with a painful smile. “I was never less suspectful of any malicious design upon me. I was, for the first time perhaps in all my life, beginning to feel strong in the consciousness that I had faithfully performed my allotted part in the world, advanced the great interests of my country and of humanity generally. This blow has, therefore, shocked me deeply.”
“What a base ingratitude!” exclaimed Lady Augusta, indignantly.