“Knowing the state of his affairs, my lord, we knew how useless the urging it would be,” returned Mr. Warburton.  “Your lordship has but a faint idea of the burdens Lord Mount Severn had upon him.  The interest alone upon his debts was frightful—­and the deuce’s own work it was to get it.  Not to speak of the kites he let loose; he would fly them, and nothing could stop him; and they had to be provided for.”

“Oh, I know,” replied the earl, with a gesture of contempt.  “Drawing one bill to cover another; that was his system.”

“Draw!” echoed Mr. Warburton.  “He would have drawn a bill on Aldgate pump.  It was a downright mania with him.”

“Urged to it by his necessities, I conclude,” put in Mr. Carlyle.

“He had no business to have such necessities, sir,” cried the earl, wrathfully.  “But let us proceed to business.  What money is there lying at his banker’s, Mr. Warburton?  Do you know?”

“None,” was the blank reply.  “We overdrew the account ourselves, a fortnight ago, to meet one of his pressing liabilities.  We hold a little; and, had he lived a week or two longer, the autumn rents would have been paid in—­though they must have been as quickly paid out again.”

“I’m glad there’s something.  What is the amount?”

“My lord,” answered Mr. Warburton, shaking his head in a self-condoling manner, “I am sorry to tell you that what we hold will not half satisfy our own claims; money actually paid out of our pockets.”

“Then where on earth is the money to come from, sir?  For the funeral—­for the servants’ wages—­for everything, in fact?”

“There is none to come from anywhere,” was the reply of Mr. Warburton.

Lord Mount Severn strode the carpet more fiercely.  “Wicked improvidence!  Shameful profligacy; callous-hearted man!  To live a rogue and die a beggar—­leaving his daughter to the charity of strangers!”

“Her case presents the worst feature of the whole,” remarked Mr. Carlyle.  “What will she do for a home?”

“She must, of course, find it with me,” replied his lordship; “and, I should hope, a better one than this.  With all these debts and duns at his elbow, Mount Severn’s house could not have been a bower of roses.”

“I fancy she knew nothing of the state of affairs; had seen little, if anything, of the embarrassments,” returned Mr. Carlyle.

“Nonsense!” said the peer.

“Mr. Carlyle is right, my lord,” observed Mr. Warburton, looking over his spectacles.  “Lady Isabel was in safety at Mount Severn till the spring, and the purchase money from East Lynne—­what the earl could touch of it—­was a stop-gap for many things, and made matters easy for the moment.  However, his imprudences are at an end now.”

“No, they are not at an end,” returned Lord Mount Severn; “they leave their effects behind them.  I hear there was a fine scene yesterday morning; some of the unfortunate wretches he has taken in made their appearance here, all the way from town.”