“About the mine, Mr Penwynn?” cried the doctor, piteously. “Yes, every shilling of my poor wife’s money! Five hundred pounds. But I ought to have known better, and shall never forget it. Is there any hope?”
“I don’t know,” said the banker, coldly. “But it was not that I wanted to ask you. It was about Geoffrey Trethick.”
“Curse Geoffrey Trethick for a smooth-tongued, heartless, brazen scoundrel!” cried the doctor, rising from his general calm state to a furious burst of passion. “The money’s bad enough. He swore to me, on his word of honour, that the mine would be a success, and I let myself be deceived, for I thought him honest. Now he has come out in his true colours.”
“That report about him then is true?”
“True,” cried the doctor, bitterly, “as true as truth; and a more heartless scoundrel I never met.”
“He denies it, I suppose?”
“Denies it? Of course: as plausibly as if he were as innocent as the little babe itself. That poor woman, Mrs Mullion, is broken-hearted, and old Paul will hardly get over it. He has had a fit since.”
“Is—is there any doubt, Rumsey?” said Mr Penwynn, sadly.
“Not an atom,” replied the doctor. “He has been my friend, and I’ve trusted and believed in him. I’d forgive him the affair over the shares, but his heartless cruelty here is disgusting—hush!—Miss Penwynn!”
Rhoda had opened the door to join her father, when, seeing the doctor there, she drew back, but she heard his last words.