"I mean, that you cannot get away from this place—you cannot dissever yourself from the people you have been living with, too soon. Come, come, don't shiver, child. Take a few drops of this cognac, and let me see the colour come back to your face before I say any more."
He poured the dregs of a bottle of brandy into a glass, and made her drink the spirit. He was obliged to force the rim of the glass between her set teeth before he could succeed in this.
"Come, Diana," he said, after she had drunk, "you have been a pupil in the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must promise to take my advice. Tell me that you will trust me."
"I have no one else to trust."
"No one else in this place. But in England you have your old friend,—the woman with whom you were at school. Do you think she would refuse to give you a temporary home if you sued to her in formâ pauperis?"
"No, I don't think she would refuse. She was very good to me. But why am I to go back to London?"
"Because to stay here would be ruin and disgrace to you; because the tie that links you to Horatio Paget must be cut at any hazard."
"But why?"
"For the best or worst of reasons. Your father has been trying a trick to-night which has been hitherto so infallible, that I suppose he had grown careless as to his execution of it. Or perhaps he took a false measure of the man he was playing with. In any case, he has been found out, and has been arrested by the police."
"Arrested, for cheating at cards!" exclaimed the girl, with a look of unspeakable disgust and horror. Valentine's arm was ready to support her, if she had shown any symptom of fainting; but she did not. She stood erect before him, very pale but firm as a rock.