"Do not make your protest till you have heard what I have to ask," said
Madame Durski. "You know how troublesome my creditors had become before
Christmas. The time has arrived when they must be paid, or when I—"
She stopped, and looked searchingly at the face of her companion.
"When you—what?" he asked. "What is the alternative, Paulina?"
"I think you ought to know as well as I," she answered. "I must either pay those debts or fly from this place, and from this country, disgraced. I appeal to you in this bitter hour of need. Can you not help me—you, who have professed to love me?"
"Surely, Paulina, you cannot doubt my love," replied Sir Reginald; "unhappily, there is no magical process by which the truest and purest love can transform itself into money. I have not a twenty-pound note in the world."
"Indeed; and the four hundred and fifty pounds you won from Lord
Caversham just before Christmas—is that money gone?"
"Every shilling of it," answered Reginald, coolly.
He had notes to the amount of nearly two hundred pounds in his desk; but he was the last man in Christendom to sacrifice money which he himself required, and his luxurious habits kept him always deeply in debt.
"You must have disposed of it very speedily. Surely, it is not all gone, Reginald. I think a hundred would satisfy my creditors, for a time at least."
"I tell you it is gone, Paulina. I gave you a considerable sum at the time I won the money—you should remember."