'Suppose I were to say that I could not pay you--for the present, at all events,' said Forestfield--'what would you say to that?'
'I should remind you--though I am sure there would be no occasion to do so--that debts of honour always must be paid. It would be impossible for you to show your face in society with the rumour that you had played and lost and repudiated hanging round you. Besides, I suppose you do not wish to be added to the distinguished list of peers who have figured in the Bankruptcy Court?'
'Of course not,' said Forestfield, whose pale cheeks were gradually becoming very red; 'but it's all devilish fine to say "pay"--how are you to do it when you have no money? The truth is, I have been disappointed. I've just heard some news which has completely upset my calculations, and I'm infernally disappointed!' And he threw himself into the chair.
'I know it,' said Uffington, bending towards him across the table, 'and I know you! Know you to be as mean a scoundrel, as contemptible a blackguard, as poor a trickster, as is to be found even in this city! Bah, don't attempt that!' he cried, catching Forestfield's uplifted arm by the wrist and holding it. 'I'm a stronger man than you, though I'm ten years older, and I haven't forgotten the lessons I used to take from Alec Keene in the old days. You would have no chance standing up against me; and as for a duel, I could take care of myself there also if I found--as I very much doubt--that you are in a position to call any gentleman to account. There,' he said, throwing Forestfield's arm away from him, 'I tell you I know you and all your miserable scheming! You say you have been disappointed, and for once you speak the truth. Months since, when you first began to suspect that your treatment of your wife had driven her to wrong-doing, you determined to profit by her sin. You would get her divorced, you said to yourself; and once free you would form an alliance, not again with a pretty trusting girl, but with some woman whose wealth would enable you to indulge in the costly dissipations of play, &c. to which you had become addicted. You looked round and made your selection, working the oracle with all that tact which I grant you possess. When your story became public, and Lady Forestfield was turned from her home, you carried your bleeding heart to Palace-gardens, there to have it bound up by Miss Vandervelde, the American heiress. Ha, ha! you see I am tolerably well informed! They could not show you too much compassion, those kindhearted people; and even when you were bold enough to hint that you would shortly be in a position to bestow your hand and title again, they were not too sensitive to bid you be silent, for they are true Republicans and dearly love a lord. But then your common sense failed you; you thought the game secure, and coming over here, launched out into those pleasures in which alone you have real enjoyment. The manner of your life in Paris has been made known in Palace-gardens, and you have received an intimation that you need show your face there no more.'
'How did you learn that?' said Lord Forestfield, taken off his guard. 'I only got old Vandervelde's letter yesterday morning.'
'I learned it because I made it my business to learn not only that, but everything about you,' said Uffington, speaking with hard earnestness. 'Not from any interest in you, God knows; for from the first time I saw you, and heard how you treated your wife, I regarded you with a loathing and an aversion so great that they can scarcely be said to have increased now, when we have been thrown so much together. Lady Forestfield's mother was my kindest friend, and seeing how much her daughter wanted an outstretched hand to help her in her solitude and her misery, I determined to repay, so far as I could, the kindness I had experienced when I stood in need of it.'
'And you stretched out your hand to help a very pretty woman, did you?' growled Forestfield. 'What a generous, unselfish creature!'
'Less selfish than appears at first sight,' said Uffington; 'for in carrying out my plan I have had to endure things against which my sense of decency, to say nothing of my pride, revolted; such as putting up with your familiarity, Lord Forestfield, and mixing with a miserable set of Pharisees, who consent to receive you into their society while they scorn your wife, whose crime has been really the outcome of your cruelty.'
'You're a pretty kind of fellow to talk in this way!' said Forestfield, looking up from under his eyebrows and speaking in a thick voice. 'You're a nice lot to preach virtue, and the necessity for domestic happiness, and that sort of thing; and you practise what you preach, don't you, and always did? You never heard of such a thing as a fellow in the Guards running off with another mans wife, say to Switzerland now, and living there with her? That wouldn't enter into your scheme of morality, would it?'
'This is the second time you have dared to make allusion to that event in my life, Lord Forestfield,' said Uffington, with a strong effort at self-control, 'and I advise you not to repeat it. In a blundering way, however, you happen to have hit upon the truth. What promised at the time to be but a mere episode in my reckless youth had its influence on my whole career, and made me what I am; a man neither ashamed to acknowledge his guilt nor professing to be sorry for his misdeeds. If the lady to whom you have made reference lost caste in the eyes of that society of which you still continue a flourishing member, she, at all events, passed the remainder of her life in peace, and was secured from the outrage to which she had been subjected by one whose duty it was to love and protect her. God knows, I set myself up as no judge of my fellow-creatures, but it is from what I knew of that lady's history and what I saw of her sufferings that I have learned to understand and pity your wife.'