"Simply the truth, sir."
"I don't, I fear, make myself clear. I meant to ask whether there was anything you wished me to add. You can always reckon upon me, Mr. Verney, to convey your views to Lord Verney, if there should ever happen to be anything you feel a delicacy about opening to his lordship yourself."
"Yes, I shall write to him," answered Cleve, drily.
And Cleve Verney rose, and the attorney, simpering and bowing grandly, took his departure.
CHAPTER XV.
CLAY RECTORY BY MOONLIGHT.
As the attorney made his astounding announcement, Cleve had felt as if his brain, in vulgar parlance, turned! In a moment the world in which he had walked and lived from his school-days passed away, and a chasm yawned at his feet. His whole future was subverted. A man who dies in delusion, and awakes not to celestial music and the light of paradise, but to the trumpet of judgment and the sight of the abyss, will quail as Cleve did.
How he so well maintained the appearance of self-possession while Mr. Larkin remained, I can't quite tell. Pride, however, which has carried so many quivering souls, with an appearance of defiance, through the press-room to the drop, supported him.