“Enjoying an evening’s stroll, Hurde?” said Mr. Godolphin. He had been spending an hour with Lord Averil, who, in doubt and uncertainty as to his deeds, had not departed from Prior’s Ash. “It is a beautiful night: so serene and still.”
“No, sir, I can’t say that I am enjoying it,” was Mr. Hurde’s reply. “My mind was not at ease as to Layton. I could not help associating him with the loss of the deeds, and I came out, thinking I’d look about a bit. It must have been instinct sent me, for I have had my suspicions confirmed.”
“Confirmed in what way?” asked Thomas Godolphin.
“That Layton has had the deeds. It could have been no other.”
Thomas Godolphin listened in surprise, not to say incredulity. “How have you had them confirmed?” he inquired, after a pause.
So then the clerk enlarged upon what he had seen. “It could not all come out of his salary, Mr. Godolphin. It does not stand to reason that it could.”
“As a daily extravagance, of course it could not, Hurde,” was the reply. “But it may be only a chance entertainment?”
Mr. Hurde passed over the question: possibly he felt that he could not meet it. “And the betting?—risking money upon race-horses, sir?”
“Ah! I like that less,” readily acknowledged Thomas Godolphin. “Many a clerk of far higher position than Layton has been ruined by it.”
“And sent across the herring-pond to expiate his folly,” returned Mr. Hurde, whom the mention of “backing” and other such incentive temptations was wont to exasperate in no measured degree. “I am afraid it looks pretty plain, sir.”