Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.
Her Own Mistress.
Chris Lisle sat at the table, over his breakfast, but nothing was good.
He had all that money lying at his bank, and after trying all kinds of subterfuges to satisfy his conscience that he had as good a right to it as anybody—that if he had not won it some one else would—that people who gambled deserved no sympathy—that all was fair in money wars, as he dubbed gaming—and that he would do more good with the money than any one else—and the like, his conscience refused to be bamboozled and told him constantly that he had won that money by a clever piece of dishonourable sharping, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself.
And he was.
That was one non-appetiser; the other was his interview with the gardener the previous night, and over this, after waking with it ready to confront him, he had been metaphorically gnashing his teeth.
“How I could have made myself such an ass! How I could have been such an idiot as to run such risks! It is like dragging her down to be the common talk and gossip of the place. Why, I shall always be that scoundrel’s slave. What an idiot he must have thought me!”
No wonder the coffee tasted bitter, and that the bacon was too salt, while he thrust the butter away as rancid, and the bread as being dry.
“If it were not for one thing I’d—Well, Mrs Sarson?”
The landlady had run in hastily, looking pale and excited, and then stood speechless before him.