"No, it is not," answered Mr. Winkworth. "It is quite true; and not only will I prove it so within the next three months, but I will prove that you have owed it for ten years, and denied the debt because you had got possession of the vouchers."
Mr. Scriven had waxed marvellously pale, and he gazed in Mr. Winkworth's face as if he had beheld a ghost.
"And who are you?" he demanded, in a dull, hollow tone; but those were the only words he seemed capable of uttering.
"I am one who have known you well," replied Mr. Winkworth, "for well-nigh thirty years; and if your memory of faces were as good as you pretend, methinks you might have remembered mine. There--go, go! We shall meet in London within a month; and pray you see that my accounts with your house are in somewhat better order than those of unhappy Stephen Hayley."
Mr. Scriven was very near the door; and a servant, opening it at that moment, gave him an opportunity of slipping out without any great bustle.
Henry was at that moment speaking a few words to Lady Anne Mellent and pale Maria Monkton--pale, I say, for agitation had blanched her cheek till it looked like the leaf of a lily.
"Shall I call him back and ask him to stay?" he said, in a low but eager tone, addressing Maria.
"No, Henry--no," she answered, laying her hand upon his arm: "it would only be a misery to himself and a restraint to us. You can never be friends, for you are nature's opposites; but you will endure him for my sake, and better at a distance."
At that moment Lady Fleetwood advanced towards them, her face beaming with every kindly purpose.
"My dear lord," she said, while Maria looked up in his face with a gentle smile, "I congratulate you most sincerely, and dear Maria too, upon the wonderful events that have happened. I don't understand it at all for my own part, though I see that it has all ended quite right and happily. You must indeed forgive my poor brother Scriven; for you know he is a dry, commonplace man of business, and I am sure did it all--with the best intentions."