“Sir, I have no secrets from my child.”
“What did she say?”
“Say? What would a weak woman say?” cried the Major contemptuously. “You have done your work well there.”
“She trusted me and told you to believe?”
The Major’s brows knitted tightly.
“God bless her!” cried Clive, with his face lighting up, and his eyes softening. “I knew she would; and come, sir, you will trust me too. I am so sorry. One of my dearest old friends has ruined himself over the wretched business.”
“You are right, sir,” said the Major. “I have.”
“I did not mean you,” said Clive, smiling; “but Doctor Praed. He actually accepted the news as true, let himself be swept along on the flood of the panic, and sold out to some scheming scoundrel who, for aught I know, may be at the bottom of all this.” The angry flush began to die out of the Major’s face, leaving it in patches of a clayey white.
“If I could only bring it home to the scoundrel—but it would be impossible. I hear that he has been buying heavily and for a mere nothing. But I’m glad you came to me first. Stop—you said you had heard from your brokers.”
“Yes, sir; I went to my brokers at once.”