“I tell you it is gone,” was the answer.
“What? Three hundred and fifty thousand pounds? Then you are a rogue! You are a fraudulent trustee! I always thought you were a damned scoundrel, Turner, and now I know it. I’ll get you to the galleys for the rest of your life, I promise you that.”
“You will gain nothing by that,” returned the banker, staring at the date-card in front of him. “And you will lose any chance there is of recovering something from the wreck. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence had better take the advice of her lawyer—in preference to yours.”
“Then I am ruined!” said that lady, rising, with an air of resolution. She was brave, at all events.
“At the present moment, it looks like it,” admitted Turner, without meeting her eye.
“What am I to do?” murmured Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, looking helplessly round the room and finally at the banker’s stolid face.
“Like the rest of us, I suppose,” he admitted. “Begin the world afresh. Perhaps your friends will come forward.”
And he looked calmly toward Colville. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence’s face suddenly flushed, and she turned away toward the door. Turner rose, laboriously, and opened it.
“There is another staircase through this side door,” he said, opening a second door, which had the appearance of a cupboard. “You can avoid the crowd.”
They passed out together, and Turner, having closed the door behind them, crossed the room to where a small mirror was suspended. He set his tie straight and smoothed his hair, and then returned to his chair, with a vague smile on his face.