“What security am I to have, Mr. Carvel?” he asked.

“My word,” I said.  “It has never yet been broken, I thank God, nor my father’s before me.  And hark ye, Mr. Dix, you shall not be able to say that of Grafton.”  Truly I thought the principal and agent were now well matched.

“Very good, Mr. Carvel,” he said; “ten per cent.  I shall call with the papers on Monday morning.”

“I shall not run away before that,” I replied.

He got out, with a poor attempt at a swagger, without his customary protestations of duty and humble offers of service.  And I thanked Heaven he had not made a scene, which in my state of mind I could not have borne, but must have laid hands upon him.  Perhaps he believed Grafton not yet secure in his title.  I did not wonder then, in the heat of my youth, that he should have accepted my honour as security.  But since I have marvelled not a little at this.  The fine gentlemen at Brooks’s with whom I had been associating were none too scrupulous, and regarded money-lenders as legitimate prey.  Debts of honour they paid but tardily, if at all.  A certain nobleman had been owing my Lord Carlisle thirteen thousand pounds for a couple of years, that his Lordship had won at hazard.  And tho’ I blush to write it, Mr. Fox himself was notorious in such matters, and was in debt to each of the coterie of fashionables of which he was the devoted chief.

The faithful Banks vowed, with tears in his eyes, that he would never desert me.  And in that moment of dejection the poor fellow’s devotion brought me no little comfort.  At such times the heart is bitter.  We look askance at our friends, and make the task of comfort doubly hard for those that remain true.  I had a great affection for the man, and had become so used to his ways and unwearying service that I had not the courage to refuse his prayers to go with me to America.  I had not a farthing of my own—­he would serve me for nothing—­nay, work for me.  “Sure,” he said, taking off my coat and bringing me my gown,—­“Sure, your honour was not made to work.”  To cheer me he went on with some foolish footman’s gossip that there lacked not ladies with jointures who would marry me, and be thankful.  I smiled sadly.

“That was when I was Mr. Carvel’s heir, Banks.”

“And your face and figure, sir, and masterful ways!  Faith, and what more would a lady want!” Banks’s notions of morality were vague enough, and he would have had me sink what I had left at hazard at Almack’s.  He had lived in this atmosphere.  Alas! there was little chance of my ever regaining the position I had held but yesterday.  I thought of the sponging-house, and my brow was moist.  England was no place, in those days, for fallen gentlemen.  With us in the Colonies the law offered itself.  Mr. Swain, and other barristers of Annapolis, came to my mind, for God had given me courage.  I would try the law.  For I had small hopes of defeating my Uncle Grafton.