"Decidedly I do. While Mr. Werner was living we should have been willing to help him, as I have already stated; now he is dead, he is beyond the possibility of help."
"Now he is dead, it is a very easy thing for your Lordship to say you would have helped him had he been living," observed Mr. Forde tauntingly, with the nearest approach to a sneer of which his features were capable.
Lord Darsham made no reply. He only smiled, and taking a fern from the basket nearest to where he sat, laid it on the cloth and contemplated its tracery.
"Am I to understand that it is your Lordship's deliberate determination to do nothing?" asked Mr. Forde after a, to him, heart-breaking pause.
"I shall certainly not pay his debts, if that is what you mean," was the reply.
Mr. Forde sat silent for a moment. He could scarcely believe in such depravity. He had thought some degree of right and proper feeling prevailed amongst the aristocracy, and now here was a lord, a creature who happened to be a lord, who deliberately said he would not pay Henry Werner's liabilities to the General Chemical Company, Limited!
At length he said,
"Perhaps your Lordship is not aware that this is a very serious matter to me?"
"I am very sorry to hear it," was the reply, but Lord Darsham did not look in the least sorry.
"If your Lordship will do nothing to enable me to tide over the anger of my directors, I shall have to leave, and what will become of my wife and children I cannot imagine. Your Lordship ought to consider them and me; brought to beggary through the misconduct and cowardice of your relative. Your Lordship will see me safe through this matter?" he finished entreatingly.