She was aghast, for she had not supposed that he could owe nearly so much. The sum seemed vast beyond belief, so that she could not be surprised when Bertram, casting himself into the other chair, began to talk in a wild way of putting a period to his existence. She let him run on, guessing that his despair needed the relief of just such mad outpourings, and having no very real fear that he would put his violent threats into execution. While he talked she cudgelled her brains for a solution to his difficulties, only lending half an ear to him, but patting his hand soothingly from time to time. Mr. Scunthorpe intervened at last, saying with great commonsense: “Don’t think you ought to jump into the river, dear old boy. Sister wouldn’t like it. Bound to leak out. Your governor might not like it either: never can tell!”
“No, indeed!” Arabella said. “You must not talk of it any more, Bertram. You know how wicked it would be!”
“Well, I suppose I shan’t kill myself,” Bertram said, a shade sulkily. “Only, I can tell you this: I’ll never face my father with this! ”
“No, no!” she agreed. “Seven hundred pounds! Bertram, how has it been possible?”
“I lost six hundred at faro,” he said, dropping his head in his hands. “The rest—Well, there was the tailor, and the horse I hired, and what I owe at Tatt’s, and my shot at the inn—oh, a dozen things! Bella, what am I to do?”
He sounded much more like the younger brother she knew when he spoke like that, a scared look in his face, and in his voice an unreasoning dependence on her ability to help him out of a scrape.
“Bills don’t signify,” pronounced Mr. Scunthorpe. “Leave town: won’t be followed. Not been living under your own name. Gaining debts another matter. Got to raise the wind for that. Debt of honour.”
“I know it, curse you!”
“But all debts are debts of honour!” Arabella said. “Indeed, you should pay your bills first of all!”
A glance passed between the two gentleman, indicative of their mutual agreement not to waste breath in arguing with a female on a subject she would clearly never understand. Bertram passed his hand over his brow, heaving a short sigh, and saying: “There’s only one thing to be done. I have thought it all over, Bella, and I mean to enlist, under a false name. If they won’t have me as a trooper, I’ll join a line regiment. I should have done it yesterday, when I first thought of it, only that there’s something I must do first. Affair of honour. I shall write to my father, of course, and I daresay he will utterly cast me off, but that can’t be helped!”