“Not long, if I know it. There’s a fellow in London looking out for a ship for me. I thought to go up and pass for second mate, but I don’t suppose I shall now. It’s as gloomy as ditch-water this time at home. They are all regularly cut up about the business here. Will the Bank go on again, Maria?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Reginald. I wish I did know.”
“I say, Maria,” added the thoughtless fellow, lowering his voice, “there’s no truth, I suppose, in what Prior’s Ash is saying about George Godolphin?”
“What is Prior’s Ash saying?” returned Maria.
“Ugly things,” answered Reginald. “I heard something about—about swindling.”
“About swindling!”
“Swindling, or forgery, or some queer thing of that sort. I wouldn’t listen to it.”
Maria grew cold. “Tell me what you heard, Reginald—as well as you can remember,” she said, her unnatural calmness deceiving Reginald, and cloaking all too well her mental agony.
“Tales are going about that there’s something wrong with George. That he has not been doing things on the square. A bankruptcy’s not much, they say, except to the creditors; it can be got over: but if there’s anything worse—why, the question is, will he get over it?”
Maria’s heart beat on as if it would burst its bounds: her blood was fiercely coursing through her veins. A few moments of struggle, and then she spoke, still with unnatural calmness.