"I believe," said he, "if I did what I ought to do, I should have you arrested at once for fraud; but I don't see that that would do me any good."

"Harry," said Eversleigh, haltingly, "I was your father's friend, and I was never unkind to you."

"Never unkind to me! What have you done with my money?"

"I never had a penny of it."

"Oh, you put the blame on Silwood! He is dead, and cannot deny the charge."

"I never had anything to do with selling your property, Harry. I did not know it had been sold until a day or two ago--until yesterday, in fact."

"But you did know when you wrote me. You lied about it."

"I did," acknowledged Eversleigh. "I could not help it. Consider how I was situated!"

"You were to get me the ten thousand pounds, and to pretend to sell the Mansions?"

"That was it."

"You can get me the ten thousand?"

"No; that was a pretence too. I cannot get you the money."

"Worse and worse!" exclaimed Bennet. "What has been done with the money?"

"Mr. Silwood might have told you, I cannot. I had none of it, I again a.s.sure you," protested Eversleigh.

Bennet now sat down.

"Let us understand each other," he said. "So far as I make the matter out, the position is this: you state Mr. Silwood disposed of my property and appropriated the proceeds--is that it?"

Eversleigh bowed.

"What do you intend doing?"

"Nothing. What can I do?"

Bennet sat very still, thinking what was the best course for him to take.

"Do you suppose," he asked at length, "that Mr. Silwood was guilty of other--irregularities?"

"How can I tell? For many years Mr. Silwood attended to all the financial business of the firm, and I never concerned myself with it at all. And now I can only find out very slowly and gradually how matters stand."

"Have you no capital? No means of your own?"

"No. I have always lived up to my income--you know how I have lived, Harry, for you have often shared my hospitality," said Eversleigh, appealingly.

"Oh, your hospitality be ----!" cried Bennet, rudely. "How does that help either you or me now? If anything, it makes matters worse. What I ought to do is just what I said. I should go to another solicitor, tell him how the case stands, and in a short time you would be in prison. But what good will that be to me? I must think everything over very carefully. I shall not be precipitate."

Eversleigh held up his head a little.

"Thank you, Harry," he said.

"I'm not thinking of you," rejoined Harry, brutally. "One word, however.

How many people know about my property being disposed of--in this irregular manner by Silwood?" asked Bennet, sarcastically.

"No one but myself."

"Can I depend on that statement?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, I shall take no action to-day. I am going home now, and to-night I'll make up my mind. I shall see you again to-morrow, and tell you what is my intention."

And Bennet strode out of the room. As he descended the stairs he almost cannoned against Gilbert Eversleigh, who was going up to see his father.

Bennet hardly returned the salute Gilbert gave him, but the sight of his successful rival had given him an idea.

CHAPTER XXI

"I shall see you again to-morrow, and tell you what is my intention,"

were the words with which Bennet had left Eversleigh, and they rang in the ears of the solicitor like a knell. He knew he was in Bennet's power, and as he thought of Harry and the character of the young man he told himself it was useless to expect mercy or even consideration of any kind.

"The day of reckoning," he moaned, "has indeed come."

He asked himself if there was any one to whom he could appeal for a.s.sistance in his extremity; but he could think of no one, and even if such a friend had existed, it would now be too late to appeal to him for help, because Bennet knew enough--and more than enough--to send him to prison.

This was in his mind when Gilbert, pa.s.sing up the stairs on which he had encountered Bennet, came into his father's room. For one moment he had a wild notion to tell his son everything, but quickly decided against it.

"I met Harry Bennet just now," remarked Gilbert, "and he seemed in a bad humour, to judge from the glance with which he favoured me. I suppose you have been giving him a lecture?"

Giving Bennet a lecture!

The irony of the thing smote Francis Eversleigh. Again he wondered if he should tell Gilbert everything, and put some of the burden on the strong shoulders of his son; but no, he could not do it. And what could Gilbert do to help him?

"Oh no," said Eversleigh, in reply to Gilbert's question; "I did not lecture him. He wanted money at a moment's notice, and I told him he must wait a little."

"I see," responded Gilbert, and the conversation pa.s.sed to other topics.

When Francis Eversleigh went home to Ivydene that evening he believed it more than probable that he was going to it for the last time for many years, as he felt certain Bennet would have him arrested next day. After a sleepless night of agony and remorse, he took a mute but infinitely pathetic farewell of the place and the loved ones whose abode it was, before leaving it.

"D'you think you are well enough to go to the office to-day?" asked his wife, doubtfully.

"Yes, dear," he replied, with more than usual tenderness in his voice.

"I'm quite well, and perhaps since Mr. Silwood's death, I give in too much to business worries; but there is nothing really the matter."