"I have come to ask you to lend me,—or at least I had better ask you to give it me, for indeed I don't know when I should ever be able to repay it,—some money, a great deal of money,—fifty pounds."
She looked at him as if she thought the magnitude of the sum must inevitably astonish him, and she saw a tender half-melancholy smile upon his face.
"My dear Isabel—my dear Mrs. Gilbert—if all the money I possess in the world could secure your happiness, I would willingly leave Midlandshire to-morrow a penniless man. I would not for the world that you should be embarrassed for an hour, while I have more money than I know what to do with. I will write you a cheque immediately,—or, better still, half-a-dozen blank cheques, which you can fill up as you require them."
But Isabel shook her head at this proposal. "You are very kind," she said; "but a cheque would not do. It must be money, if you please; the person for whom I want it would not take a cheque."
Roland Lansdell looked at her with a sudden expression of doubt,—of something that was almost terror in his face.
"The person for whom you want it," he repeated. "It is not for yourself, then, that you want this money?"
"Oh no, indeed! What should I want with so much money?"
"I thought you might be in debt. I thought that——Ah, I see; it is for your husband that you want the money."
"Oh no; my husband knows nothing about it. But, oh, pray, pray don't question me. Ah, if you knew how much I suffered before I came here to-night! If there had been any other person in the world who could have helped me, I would never have come here; but there is no one, and I must get the money."
Roland's face grew darker as Mrs. Gilbert spoke. Her agitation, her earnestness, mystified and alarmed him.