The old man laid down the letter, and seemed to ponder for some moments.
“What's the amount?—how much is the sum?” asked Grounsell, bluntly.
“The amount!—the sum!——of what?” inquired Sir Stafford.
“I ask, what demand is she making, that it is prefaced thus?”
“By Heaven! if you were not a friend of more than fifty years' standing, you should never address me as such again,” cried Onslow, passionately. “Has ill-nature so absorbed your faculties that you have not a good thought or good feeling left you?”
“My stock of them decreases every day,——ay, every hour, Onslow,” said he, with a deeper emotion than he had yet displayed. “It is, indeed, a sorry compromise, that if age is to make us wiser, it should make us less amiable, also!”
“You are not angry with me?—not offended, Grounsell?” said Onslow, grasping his hand in both his own.
“Not a bit of it But, as to temperament, I can no more help my distrust, than you can conquer your credulity, which is a happier philosophy, after all.”
“Then come, read that letter, Grounsell,” said Onslow, smiling pleasantly. “Put your prejudices aside for once, and be just, if not generous.”
Grounsell took the note, and walked to the window to read it. The note was just what he expected,—a prettily turned inquiry after her husband's health, interwoven with various little pleasantries of travelling, incidents of the road, and so forth. The invitation was a mere suggestion, and Grounsell was half angry at how little there was to find fault with; for, even to the “Very sincerely yours, Hester Onslow,” all was as commonplace as need be. Accidentally turning over the page, however, he found a small slip of silver paper,—a bank check for five hundred pounds, only wanting Onslow's signature. Grounsell crushed it convulsively in his palm, and handed the note back to Onslow, without a word.