Ascott smiled, half contemptuously, half carelessly:  he was not a young fellow likely to perplex himself long or deeply about these sort of things.

“Any how, I’ve got £20 in my pocket, so I can’t starve for a day or two.  Let’s see; where is it to be cashed?  Hillo! who would have thought the old fellow would have been so stupid?  Look there, Aunt Hilary!”

She was so unfamiliar with checks for £20, poor little woman! that she did not at first recognize the omission of the figures “£20” at the left-hand corner.  Otherwise the check was correct.

“Ho, ho!” laughed Ascott, exceedingly amused, so easily was the current of his mind changed.  “It must have been the £5000 pending that muddled the ’cute old fellow’s brains.  I wonder whether he will remember it afterward, and come posting up to see that I’ve taken no ill-advantage of his blunder; changed this ‘Twenty’ into ‘Seventy.’  I easily could, and put the figures £70 here.  What a good joke!”

“Had ye not better go to him at once, and have the matter put right?”

“Rubbish!  I can put it right myself.  It makes no difference who fills up a check, so that it is signed all correct.  A deal you women know of business!”

But still Hilary, with a certain womanish uneasiness about money matters, and an anxiety to have the thing settled beyond doubt, urged him to go.

“Very well; just as you like.  I do believe you are afraid of my turning forger.”

He buttoned his coat with a half sulky, half defiant air, left his supper untasted, and disappeared.

It was midnight before he returned.  His aunts were still sitting up, imagining all sorts of horrors, in an anxiety too great for words; but when Hilary ran to the door, with the natural “Oh, Ascott, where have you been?” he pushed her aside with a gesture that was almost fierce in its repulsion.

“Where have I been? taking a walk round the Park; that’s all.  Can’t I come and go as I like, without being pestered by women?  I’m horribly tired.  Let me alone—­do!”

They did let him alone.  Deeply wounded, Aunt Johanna took no further notice of him than to set his chair a little closer to the fire, and Aunt Hilary slipped down stairs for more coals.  There she found Elizabeth, who they thought had long since gone to bed, sitting on the stairs, very sleepy, but watching still.

“Is he come in?” she asked; “because there are more bailiffs after him.  I’m sure of it; I saw them.”

This, then, might account for his keeping out of the way till after twelve o’clock, and also for his wild, haggard look.  Hilary put aside her vague dread of some new misfortune; assured Elizabeth that all was right; he had got wherewithal to pay every body on Monday morning, and would be safe till then.  All debtors were safe on Sunday.

“Go to bed now—­there’s a good girl; it is hard that you should be troubled with our troubles.”