"I'm no so certain that I ought to tell ye. And yet, seeing that there's a leddy in the case, it's perhaps only right that you should know."
"A lady in the case! You must tell me now, or I shall die of curiosity."
"I suppose I must tell ye, or else you'll no be satisfied," he said. "But let us sit down while we talk. Sitting's as cheap as standing, and I'm no so young as I have been, Mr. Pummery. It was that bit imp of a lawyer laddie," resumed Sanderson, as soon as he and Gerald were comfortably seated, "young Brazen-face, I call him, from Mr. Kelvin's. He was here t'other day, here in this very spot, and Miss Lloyd happened to come in quite accidental at the time. I'd been hard at work all the morning, and was just resting a bit behind the bushes, when all at once I heard young Brazen-face mention your name, and that made me listen to hear more."
"And what had the young vagabond to say about me, Sanderson?"
"Why, he said that you were as poor as a church mouse, and that his master lent you fifty pounds to buy your clothes with."
"There's nothing very bad in that."
"But he said the reason why you came to Stammers was that you might fall in love with Miss Lloyd and marry her, because she was worth twenty thousand pounds."
"The young scoundrel! And he told that to Miss Lloyd?"
"That's just what he did! And he said that Miss Deane knew all about it, and that it was all a planned thing between you and her."
Gerald was dumbfounded. He could not find a word to say for a little while. What must Eleanor think of him! It would not be a very difficult matter to set himself right with her if he chose to do so, but a climax was being forced upon him which he would gladly have delayed for a little while longer.