“Oh! yes, I bless you,” cried Susan innocently.
The late exulting Meadows was benumbed at this.
“Surely Heaven sends you to me,” cried Susan. “It is Mr. Levi, of Farnborough.”
Here was a diversion. Meadows cursed the intruder, and his own evil star that had raised him up so malignant an enemy.
“All my web undone in a moment,” thought he, and despair began to take possession of him.
Susan, on the other hand, was all joy and hope; William more or less despondent.
The old Jew glanced from one to another, read them all, and enjoyed his triumph.
But when his eye returned to George Fielding he met with something he had not reckoned upon.
The young man showed no joy, no emotion. He stood immovable, like a statue of a man, and when he opened his lips it was like a statue speaking with its marble mouth.
“No! Susan. No! old man. I am honest, though I'm poor—and proud, though you have seen me put to shame near my own homestead more than once to-day. To borrow without a chance of paying is next door to stealing; and I should never pay you. My eyes are opened in spite of my heart. I can't farm 'The Grove' with no grass, and wheat at forty shillings. I've tried all I know, and I can't do it. Will there is dying to try, and he shall try, and may Heaven speed his plow better than it has poor George's.”