“Your money back.”
“The ten thousand pounds?”
“Yes; I did not want it. I have delivered my soul, and nothing else matters.”
“Tell me at least one thing. Is this strange action on your part owing to the child’s accident?”
“It is. I was going headlong down to hell, but God, through her, has pulled me up short. Gold is utterly valueless to me now. The child is dying, and I cannot part with her for all eternity. You can draw your own conclusions.”
As Ogilvie spoke he shook Grayleigh’s detaining hand from his arm. The chairman of the Lombard Deeps Company stood still for a moment, then returned to the directors.
As Grayleigh walked slowly upstairs he had a moment’s conflict with his own conscience. In one thing at least Ogilvie was generous. He had not dragged Lord Grayleigh to the earth in his own fall. The affair of the ten thousand pounds was known to no one else.
“He fell, and I caused him to fall,” thought Lord Grayleigh. “In the moment of his fall, if I were even half a man, I would stand by him and acknowledge my share in the matter. But no; where would be the use? I cannot drag my children through the mire. Poor Ogilvie is losing his child, and for him practically life is over.”