“Well, I’ll ask you again—the third time of asking, and you’ll take one. Three scruples make one dram! Ho, ho! Hear, hear!”
He poured out a bumper of burgundy, and motioned his young friend to proceed.
“Since leaving you, my suspicions have been confirmed.” Bromley showed the letter, and told Dr Leadbitter the whole story.
“Hear, hear, young man,” said the doctor, as his young friend finished. “The disease is plainer than the remedy.”
“The sum is very large, or I could manage it.”
“I should not allow Constance to pay her—at least for some time. I am an old man. You are a young one. I should not wonder if there were some few figures in my favour at Coutts’s. Sir Jehoshaphat is an old friend of mine—as honourable a man as ever lived. Good digestion, though bilious. I should like to break the force of the blow.”
Sir Jehoshaphat Coxe sallied forth the next morning with a heavy heart and a glowing brow.
He marched down Grosvenor Street slowly. At length he reached the house of Madame Mélanie.
With stately steps, and firm determination, he walked up the stairs, and entered the room of the dressmaker. She received him with a curtsy and a smile.