"Then sell it," said Wylie.
"I dare not. The affair must cool down before I can appear as a seller of gold; and even then I must dribble it out with great caution. Thank Heaven, it is no longer in those cellars."
"Where is it, then?"
"That is my secret. You will get your two thousand all in good time; and, if it makes you one-tenth part as wretched as it has made me, you will thank me for all these delays."
At last Wylie lost all patience, and began to show his teeth; and then Arthur Wardlaw paid him his two thousand pounds in forty crisp notes.
He crammed them into a side pocket, and went down triumphant to Nancy Rouse. Through her parlor window he saw the benign countenance of Michael Penfold. He then remembered that Penfold had told him some time before that he was going to lodge with her as soon as the present lodger should go.
This, however, rather interrupted Wylie's design of walking in and chucking the two thousand pounds into Nancy's lap. On the contrary, he shoved them deeper down in his pocket, and resolved to see the old gentleman to bed, and then produce his pelf, and fix the wedding-day with Nancy.
He came in and found her crying, and Penfold making weak efforts to console her. The tea-things were on the table, and Nancy 's cup half emptied.
Wylie came in, and said, "Why, what is the matter now?"
He said this mighty cheerfully, as one who carried the panacea for all ills in his pocket, and a medicine peculiarly suited to Nancy Rouse's constitution. But he had not quite fathomed her yet.