Jean lifted her lips and kissed him softly on the cheek. She felt faint and limp, as though suddenly overpowered by fatigue; but the predominant feeling was still that Robert was in trouble, that he was appealing to her for strength, that whatever trials were to come, she must not fail him now.
“You’ve given me everything worth having. All the riches in the world couldn’t give me happiness without you. If the money goes, we’ll have to love each other more, and no bank, no bank, can touch that. Robert!”—her voice broke on a note of exquisite tenderness—“remember what you called me that first day—remember the prophecy! If fortune has gone, you have still your treasure!”
And Robert, blessing her, shedding tears of mingled joy and sorrow, declared that he was rich indeed.
Chapter Twenty Four.
The Feet of Clay.
Time did nothing to soften the severity of the blow which had fallen upon the shareholders of the Glasgow Bank; rather, with every day as it passed did the situation become more hopeless and terrible. Defalcations of three years’ standing left a deficit so abysmal that nothing short of the uttermost farthing could hope to fill it, and even the enormous preliminary call spelt ruin to many small holders, of whom Robert Gloucester was one. When every copper which he possessed had been realised, he was still far behind the amount demanded, and a bill of sale was issued on his household effects.
To Mr Goring the disaster came at once as a shock and a confirmation of old fears. He found himself in the position of being able to say “I told you so”; but there was little pleasure in the advantage when the chief sufferer was his dearest child, and the transgressor so humble and penitent as his son-in-law. His chief grief was that, owing to decreasing income from his own investments, and the expenses of two big sons at Oxford, he could not increase the allowance of two hundred a year which he had regularly contributed towards the Gloucester ménage. Jean expected him to offer to buy her furniture at a valuation, but, to her intense disappointment, he made no such proposition.
“Get rid of the things as best you can—they’ll sell well, or ought to, considering the price Robert paid. They wouldn’t fit into a small house, and you’ll want a different style of thing altogether—plain, simple furniture, that can be kept in order by less experienced maids. All these curios and odds and ends are very well in their way, but they mean work—work! There’ll be no time for dusting old china and polishing brasses. Get rid of them all, and I’ll see what I can do towards helping you to a fresh start. We have been looking through the rooms at home, and there are a lot of odds and ends which we can share. You’ll have to lie low for a time, and be satisfied with usefuls; but I’ll see that you are comfortable, my dear. I’ll see to that.”