“I don’t know anything about Appleby,” replied George. “I remember the name, as being owned by a gentleman who was subjected to some bad treatment in the shape of swindling, by one Rustin. But what had you or Verrall to do with it?”
“Psha!” said Rodolf Pain. “Verrall was Rustin.”
George Godolphin opened his eyes to their utmost width. “N—o!” he said, very slowly, certain curious ideas beginning to crowd into his mind. Certain remembrances also.
“He was.—Charlotte, I tell you it is of no use: I will speak. What does it matter, Mr. George Godolphin’s knowing it? Verrall was the real principal—Rustin, in fact; I, the ostensible one. And I had to suffer.”
“Did Appleby think you were Rustin?” inquired George, thoroughly bewildered.
“Appleby at one time thought I was Verrall. Oh, I assure you there were wheels within wheels at work there. Of course there had to be, to carry on such a concern as that. It is so still. Verrall, you know, could not be made the scapegoat, he takes care of that—besides, it would blow the whole thing to pieces, if any evil fell upon him. It fell upon me, and I had to suffer for it, and abroad I went. I did not grumble; it would have been of no use: had I stayed at home and braved it out, I should have been sent abroad, I suppose, at her Majesty’s cost——”
Charlotte interrupted, in a terrible passion. “Have you no sense of humiliation, Rodolf Pain, that you tell these strange stories? Mr. George Godolphin, I pray you do not listen to him!”
“I am safe,” replied George. “Pain can say what he pleases. It is safe with me.”
“As to humiliation, that does not fall so much to my share as it does to another’s, in the light I look at it. I was not the principal; I was only the scapegoat; principals rarely are made the scapegoats in that sort of business. Let it go, I say. I took the punishment without a word. But, now that the man’s dead, and I can come home with safety, I want to know why I was not sent for?”
“I don’t believe the man’s dead,” observed Charlotte.