M‘Nab did not ask many questions; it was not his wont except when he wished to lower the spirits of an owner of store sheep, with a view to a slight concession in price. But he gathered from Jack’s visage and listless air that no success of any kind had attended his efforts.
“Gondaree is to be sold,” said he, with the recklessness of despair, “some time next month. You will soon see an advertisement headed ‘Magnificent salt-bush property on the Warroo,’ and so on.”
“And ye were unable to get any assistance from the bank?”
“No more than brandy and soda out of an iceberg,” responded Jack, helping himself to the first-named restorative. “Whether they want money, and have to recoup themselves out of us poor devils, I don’t know. But you would think that other than cash payments had been unknown since Magna Charta. Shall have to carry our coin in leather bags soon.”
“Ay, that’s bad, very bad! I didn’t realize things would be just that bad. Surely the banks might have just a trifle of discrimination; if Gondaree is sold now, they’re just making some one a present of thirty thousand pounds out of your pocket.”
“I am much of your way of thinking, M‘Nab; I am just as sure as that we shall see the sun to-morrow that I am going to be sold off at the edge of a rising market. It’s hard—too hard; but a man’s life, more or less, can’t matter.”
“Could you not have sold half, and held on with the rest?” suggested M‘Nab, still restlessly cogitating every conceivable scheme. “The place could divide first-rate opposite the Point. If you had sent me down, I’ll warrant I would have knocked up a deal, or a put-off, in some fashion.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you had,” assented Jack. “I ought to have sent you down with a power of attorney—only that one has a mistaken preference for mismanaging one’s own affairs. Well, it can’t be helped now. Cursed be the stock and station. Cursed be the whole concern.”
Jack was fully a week at home before he could nerve himself for the inevitable last visit to Juandah—his farewell to Maud Stangrove. It was a cruel word; it would be a bitter parting; but he must tell her in his own speech that his fate had but suffered him to win her heart, had but lured him to the contemplation of the unutterable happiness that should have been theirs, to drop the veil for ever, to shatter the goblet in which the draught had foamed and sparkled with unearthly brilliancy.