“Mr. George, he ought to be sent for; he ought to know what’s going on; it is an imperative duty,” remonstrated the clerk, in a strangely severe tone. “In fact, sir, if you don’t send, I must. I am responsible to him.”
“Send, then,” said George. “I only thought to spare him vexation.”
Mr. Hurde beckoned Isaac Hastings. “Fly for your life up to Ashlydyat, and see Mr. Godolphin,” he breathed in his ear. “Tell him there’s a run upon the Bank.”
Isaac, passing through the Bank with apparent unconcern, easy and careless as if he had taken a leaf from the book of George Godolphin, did not let the grass grow under his feet when he was out. But, instead of turning towards Ashlydyat, he took the way to All Souls’ Rectory.
Arriving panting and breathless, he dashed in, and dashed against his brother Reginald, not five minutes arrived from a two years’ absence at sea. Scarcely giving half a moment to a passing greeting, he was hastening from the room again in search of his father.
“Do you call that a welcome, Isaac?” exclaimed Mrs. Hastings, in a surprised and reproving tone. “What’s your hurry? One would think you were upon an errand of life and death.”
“So I am: it is little short of it,” he replied in agitation. “Regy, don’t stop me: you will know all soon. Is my father in his room?”
“He has gone out,” said Mrs. Hastings.
“Gone out!” The words sounded like a knell. Unless his father hastened to the Bank, he might be a ruined man. “Where’s he gone, mother?”
“My dear, I have not the least idea. What is the matter with you?”