About ten minutes, and George Godolphin came forward. “Ah! is it you?” said he, with his sunny smile. “You are here early this morning.”
“I want to say just a word to you in private, Mr. George.”
George led the way to his room, talking gaily. He pushed a chair towards Mr. Hastings, and took his own. Never a face more free from care than his; never an eye less troubled. He asked after Mrs. Hastings; asked after Reginald, who was daily expected home from a voyage—whether he had arrived. “Maria dreamt last night that he had returned,” said he, laughing, “and told her he was never going to sea again.”
Mr. Hastings remembered his dreams—if dreams they could be called. He was beginning to think that he must have had nightmare.
“Mr. George, I have come to you upon a strange errand,” he began. “Will you for a few moments regard me as a confidential friend, and treat me as one?”
“I hope it is what I always do, sir,” was the reply of George Godolphin.
“Ay; but I want a proof of your friendship this morning. But for my being connected with you by close ties, I should not have so come. Tell me, honestly and confidentially, as between man and man—Is that trust-money safe?”
George looked at Mr. Hastings, his countenance slightly changing. Mr. Hastings thought he was vexed.
“I do not understand you,” he said.
“I have heard a rumour—I have heard, in fact, two rumours—that—— The long and the short of it is this,” more rapidly continued Mr. Hastings, “I have heard that there’s something doubtful arising with the Bank.”