"He's neither found nor likely to be," said Roland, shaking his head. "Old Galloway declares it will be his death: I'm not sure but it'll be mine. And now I must be off, Simms, and I leave you my honest word that I'll send you the money as soon as ever it is in my power. I'd like to pay you all with interest. You shall be the first of them to get it."
"I suppose you couldn't pay me a trifle off it now, Mr. Yorke? A pound or so."
"Bless your heart!" cried Roland, in wide astonishment. "A pound or so! I don't possess it. I pawned my black dress-suit for thirty shillings to come down upon, and travelled third class. Goodbye, old Simms; I shall lose the train."
He went off like a shot. Mr. Simms looking after the well-dressed gentleman, did not know what to make of the plea of poverty.
Roland went whirling back to London again, third class, and arrived at the Paddington terminus in a fever. That the worst had happened to Arthur, whatever that worst might be, he no longer entertained a shadow of doubt. His thirty shillings (we might never have known he had been so rich but for the candid avowal to Mr. Simms) were not quite exhausted, and Roland put his parcels into a hansom and drove down to Mrs. Gerald Yorke's.
To find that lady in tears was nothing unusual; the rule, in fact, rather than the exception; she was seated on the floor by the firelight in the evening's approaching dusk, and the three little girls with her. The grief was not much more than usual. Gerald had been at home, and in a fit of bitter anger had absolutely forbidden her to take the children to drink tea with little Nelly Channing at four o'clock, as invited. Four o'clock had struck; five too; and the disappointed mother and children had cried through the hour.
"It is too bad of Gerald," cried sympathising Roland, putting his parcels on the table.
"Yes, it is; not to let us go there," sobbed Mrs. Yorke. "All Gerald's money is gone, too, and he went off without answering me when I said I must have some. I don't possess as much as a fourpenny-piece in the world; and we've not got an atom of tea or butter in the house and can have no tea at home, and we've only one scuttle of coals left, for I've just rung for some and the girl says so, and--oh, I wish I was dead!"
Roland felt in his pockets, and found three shillings and twopence. It was all he possessed. This he put on the table, wishing it was fifty times as much. His heart was good to help all the world.
"I'm ashamed of its being such a trifle," said he, pulling at his whiskers in mortification. "If I were rich I should be glad to help everybody. Perhaps it'll buy a quarter of butter and a bit of tea and half a hundred of coals."