“Indeed! And what have you done with that letter?”
“I took it last night to Mr. Raidsford.”
For a moment Arthur thought his kinsman was going to strike him. Mr. Black made a step forward towards his visitor, and lifted his clenched hand, but next instant he let it drop heavily on the table while he asked—
“Pray, Mister Squire Dudley, was that your idea of honour?”
“Yes, Mr. Black, it was, strictly,” Arthur replied.
“And how much did he give you for the information?—come now, be frank. I would have outbid him, had you played your cards well. What was the figure? Did you go cheap? I’ll be sworn you did. I’ll bet ten to one you sold yourself as well as me. Oh! you won’t answer—you are sulky. You are going to deprive me of the pleasure of your honourable, and gentlemanly, and intellectual society! Curse you!” added the promoter, suddenly changing his sneering tone for one of the intensest fury, “curse you, for a skulking, sneaking, timid fool, who has not even sense enough to enjoy seeing a man who ruined us ruined likewise! I’ll be even with you yet. I’ll make you rue the day you meddled in my concerns, and spoiled my game. Do you hear me, Dudley?” he shouted across the outer office; “look to yourself!”
“I intend,” was Arthur Dudley’s reply, as he walked into the street, knowing he was a ruined man.
He did not return to Lincoln’s Inn Fields for some hours—not, in fact, until after he had seen a solicitor, and laid the exact state of his affairs before that gentleman.
Now the worst had come, he felt equal to face it. He felt it was better to know the extent of his liabilities, and to take immediate measures for breaking off all dealings with the man who had led him so terribly astray.
For every scrap of paper to which he had ever attached his name, he was liable. His shares, he knew, were not worth sixpence; the whole of his property would barely suffice to pay his debts; Berrie Down must go, and also the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. This was the end of the dreamer’s vision—this was the fortune he had come to London to seek! Beggary!