approval of it!  I have to check the whisper that tells me it reads like a conspiracy.  Is she not a simpleton?  Can you withhold your pity? and pitying, can you possibly allow her to be entrapped?  Forgive my seeming harshness.  I do not often speak to my Harry so.  I do now because I must appeal to you, as the one chiefly responsible, on whose head the whole weight of a dreadful error will fall.  Oh! my dearest, be guided by the purity of your feelings to shun doubtful means.  I have hopes that after the first few weeks your grandfather will—­I know he does not ’expect to find the engagement fulfilled—­be the same to you that he was before he discovered the extravagance.  You are in Parliament, and I am certain, that by keeping as much as possible to yourself, and living soberly, your career there will persuade him to meet your wishes.’

The letter was of great length.  In conclusion, she entreated me to despatch an answer by one of the early morning trains; entreating me once more to cause ‘any actual deed’ to be at least postponed.  The letter revealed what I had often conceived might be.

My rejoinder to my aunt Dorothy laid stress on my father’s pledge of his word of honour as a gentleman to satisfy the squire on a stated day.  I shrank from the idea of the Riversley crow over him.  As to the lady, I said we would see that her money was fastened to her securely before she committed herself to the deeps.  The money to be advanced to me would lie at my bankers, in my name,—­untouched:  it would be repaid in the bulk after a season.  This I dwelt on particularly, both to satisfy her and to appease my sense of the obligation.  An airy pleasantry in the tone of this epistle amused me while writing it and vexed me when it had gone.  But a letter sent, upon special request, by railway, should not, I thought, be couched in the ordinary strain.  Besides one could not write seriously of a person like Lady Sampleman.

I consulted my aunt Dorothy’s scruples by stopping my father on his way to the lady.  His carriage was at the door:  I suggested money-lenders:  he had tried them all.  He begged me to permit him to start:  but it was too ignominious to think of its being done under my very eyes, and I refused.  He had tried the money-lenders yesterday.  They required a mortgage solider than expectations for the sum we wanted.  Dettermain and Newson had declined to undertake the hypothecation of his annuity.  Providence pointed to Sampleman.

‘You change in a couple of nights, Richie,’ said he.  ’Now I am always the identical man.  I shall give happiness to one sincerely good soul.  I have only to offer myself—­let me say in becoming modesty, I believe so.  Let me go to her and have it over, for with me a step taken is a thing sanctified.  I have in fact held her in reserve.  Not that I think Fortune has abandoned us:  but a sagacious schemer will not leave everything to the worthy Dame.  I should have driven to her yesterday, if I had not heard from Dettermain and Newson that there was a hint of a negotiation for a compromise.  Government is fairly frightened.’