Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“No, father; she gave herself.”

“Well, there!” He freed himself from her. “That’s enough now, girl. We’ll talk about it another time. But I’m not pleased, Betty.”

“No?” said Betty, gaily, but dabbing her eyes at the same time. “He said that. He said that you would not be pleased. He was dreadfully afraid of you. And I said you wouldn’t be pleased, too. But——”

“Eh?”

“I said you’d come to it, father, by and by. In good time.”

“Well, I’m——” But what the banker was, was lost in the peal of laughter that Clement could no longer restrain.

CHAPTER XLI

Arthur, after he had dropped from the post-chaise that morning, did not at once move away. He stood on the crown of the East Bridge, looking down the river, and the turmoil of his feelings was such as for a time to render thought of the future impossible, and even to hold despair at bay. The certainty that his plan would have succeeded if it had not been thwarted by the very persons who would have profited by it, and the knowledge that but for their scruples all that he had at stake in the bank would have been saved—this certainty and this knowledge, with the fact that while they left him to bear the obloquy they had denied him the prize, so maddened him that for a full minute he stood, grasping the stone balustrade of the bridge, and whispering curses at the current that flowed smoothly below.

The sunshine and the fair scene did but mock him. The green meadows, and the winding river, and the crescent of stately buildings, spire-crowned, that, curving with the stream, looked down upon it from the site of the ancient walls, did but deride his misery. For, how many a time had he stood on that spot and looked on that scene in days when he had been happy and carefree, his future as sunny as the landscape before him! And now—oh, the cowards! The cowards, who had not had the courage even to pick up the fruit which his daring had shaken from the bough.

Ay, his daring and his enterprise! For what else was it? What had he done, after all, at which they need made mouths? It had been but a loan he had taken, the use for a few weeks of money which was useless where it lay, and of which not a penny would be lost! And again he cursed the weakness of those who had rendered futile all that he, the bolder spirit, had done, who had consigned themselves and him to failure and to beggary. He had bought their safety at his own cost, and they had declined to be saved. He shook with rage, with impotent rage, as he thought of it.