“And you have really not been ill?”

“Not in the least.  I am never ill.”

He pushed aside his papers, and sat with his elbow on the desk and his head leaning on his hand, waiting for Gilbert to talk.  He was evidently in one of those silent moods which were common to him at times.

Gilbert told him of his Melbourne troubles, and of his immediate departure.  The announcement roused him from his absent humour.  He dropped his arm from the table suddenly, and sat looking full at Gilbert with a very intent expression.

“This is strange news,” he said, “and it will cause the postponement of your marriage, I suppose?”

“Unhappily, yes; that is unavoidable.  Hard lines, isn’t it, Jack?”

“Well, yes; I daresay the separation seems rather a hardship; but you are young enough to stand a few months’ delay.  When do you sail?”

“To-morrow.”

“So soon?”

“Yes.  It is a case in which everything depends upon rapidity of action.  I leave Liverpool to-morrow afternoon.  I came up from Lidford to-day on purpose to spend a few farewell hours with you.  And I have been thinking, Jack, that you might run down to Liverpool with me to-morrow, and see the last of me, eh, old fellow?”

John Saltram hesitated, looking doubtfully at his papers.

“It would be only a kind thing to do, Jack, and a wholesome change for yourself into the bargain.  Anything would be better for you than being shut up in these chambers another day.”

“Well, Gilbert, I’ll go with you,” said Mr. Saltram presently with a kind of recklessness.  “It is a small thing to do for friendship.  Yes, I’ll see you off, dear boy.  Egad, I wish I could go to Australia with you.  I would, if it were not for my engagements with the children and sundry other creditors.  I think a new country might do me good.  But there’s no use in talking about that.  I’m bound hand and foot to the old one.”

“That reminds me of something I had to say to you, John.  There must have been some reason for your leaving Lidford in that sudden way the other day, and your note explained nothing.  I thought you and I had no secrets from each other, It’s scarcely fair to treat me like that.”

“The business was hardly worth explaining,” answered the other moodily.  “A bill that I had forgotten for the time fell due just then, and I hurried off to set things straight.”

“Let me help you somehow or other, Jack.”

“No, Gilbert; I will never suffer you to become entangled in the labyrinth of my affairs.  You don’t know what a hopeless wilderness you would enter if you were desperate enough to attempt my rescue.  I have been past redemption for the last ten years, ever since I left Oxford.  Nothing but a rich marriage will ever set me straight; and I sometimes doubt if that game is worth the candle, and whether it would not be better to make a clean sweep of my engagements, offer up my name to the execration of mankind and the fiery indignation of solvent journalists,—­who would find subject for sensation leaders in my iniquities,—­emigrate, and turn bushranger.  A wild free life in the wilderness must be a happy exchange for all the petty worries and perplexities of this cursed existence.”