“No, very well. But you are still keeping me a little in the dark, you know. When did you lose all this money? Not lately, surely?”
“At Christmas. Well, I had better make a clean breast of the whole! I went to a rascally moneylender, and I borrowed five hundred from him, for six months. I thought I should have won every penny back, and more beside at Newmarket. But the damnable screw was unplaced!” He saw his brother’s expression, and said, “You need not look like that! I swear I shall never do so again as long as I live! Of course I ought to have come rather to you, but — ”
“You should have come to me, and that you did not must have been far more my fault than yours!”
“Oh, well, I don’t know that!” Hubert said uncomfortably. “I expect if I had been rather better acquainted with you I should have done so. Sophy said I should do so from the start, and Lord, if I’d had the least notion of what she meant to do I would have run to you straight away!”
“Then you did not apply to her for the money?”
“Good God, no! Charles, you can’t think I would borrow money from Sophy?”
“I didn’t think it. But neither did I think we were so ill acquainted that — Well, never mind that! How did Sophy know of this, and if you did not borrow the money from her, why did she sell her earrings?”
“She guessed I was all to pieces. She made me tell her, and when I said I had rather not say a word to you, she offered to lend me the money. Of course I refused! But she knew where Goldhanger lived, and, without telling me what she meant to do, she went to see him herself, and got back my note of hand, and my ring. I had to pledge Grandfather Stanton-Lacy’s emerald, you see. I don’t know how she did it, for she swears he did not pay the old devil a penny of the interest. She is the most redoubtable girl! But I couldn’t stand that, as you may suppose!”
“Sophy went to a moneylender?” repeated Mr. Rivenhall incredulously. “Nonsense! She cannot have done such a thing!”
“Well, she ain’t one to tell fibs, and that’s what she said!” declared Hubert.