CHAPTER XXVIII
WARNING
In the evening, which was Wednesday, I repaired to the gardens, paying for my admission, but no longer in the character of a fine gentleman. Lord Fylingdale was not present, nor Molly. Lady Anastasia was there, gracious and smiling as usual. Nothing was said about her approaching departure. After walking round the long room she retired to the card room, and play began as usual. It seemed to me, looking on with a few others at the door, that there was a kind of awkwardness or constraint among the company. They collected together in small groups, which whispered to each other; then these groups melted away, forming new companies, which in their turn dissolved. Something of importance had happened. Presently some of the gentlemen in the card room came out. They, in their turn, became surrounded and formed into another group, who whispered eagerly with each other. They were standing near the door, and I overheard some of their discourse. "I am assured," one of them was saying, "that he has been ordered out of the assembly at Bath for foul play at cards, and I have it on the best authority that he was driven off the Heath of Newmarket." I did not know of whom he was speaking.
"Truly," said another, "we seem to have fallen into the midst of a very pretty set of sharpers. Will Tom Rising, if he gets the better of his wound, have to pay that debt? I think not. A debt of honour can only be contracted with a man of honour."
"On the other hand, sir, if Tom had won he would have looked for payment."
"Why, sir, that is true. But observe, when we played with the colonel we took him for a man of honour. Some of us have won a few guineas of him. Should we return them? No. And why? Because we accepted him as a man of honour, and stood to win or lose as between gentlemen. Now, one does not play with a sharper knowingly. One would not take his money; one would not pay him if we lost."
"Then Tom must not pay."
"If what we hear is true; if the man has been exposed at Bath; if he has been warned off the Heath of Newmarket; most assuredly Tom must not pay a farthing."
"At present the fever is still upon him. Well, but we must wait. All this may be mere rumour."
"It may be, as you say; but I think not. The report comes from Houghton, Sir Robert's place, where a certain cousin of Tom Rising, member of Parliament, I think, for Ipswich, is now staying as a guest. Houghton is only a few miles from Lynn. It lies in the marshland. This gentleman, then, heard of the duel and the wound, and has been to see his cousin."
"Is he still in the town? Can one have speech with him?"