"Why--yes--I have," said Mrs. Verrall, with some emphasis. "I was about to despatch a small parcel this very next hour to Charlotte, lay post.

But--when shall you see her? To-night?"

"I can see her to-night if you wish it."

"It would oblige me much. The truth is, it is something I ought to have sent yesterday, and I forgot it. Be sure and let her have it to-night."

Mrs. Verrall rang, and a small packet, no larger than a bulky letter, was brought in. George took it, and was soon being whirled back to London.

He stepped into a cab at the Waterloo Station, telling the man he should have double pay if he drove at double speed: and it conveyed him to Mr.

Verrall's chambers.

George went straight to Mr. Brompton's room, as before. That gentleman had finished his _Times_, and was buried deep in a pile of letters. "Is Mr. Verrall in now?" asked George.

"He is here now, Mr. G.o.dolphin. He was here two minutes after you departed: it's a wonder you did not meet."

George knew the way to Mr. Verrall's room, and was allowed to enter. Mr.

Verrall, alone then, turned round with a cordial grasp.

"Holloa!" said he. "We somehow missed this morning. How are you?"

"I say, Verrall, how came you to play me such a trick as to go off in that clandestine manner yesterday?" remonstrated George. "You know the uncertainty I was in: that if I did not get what I hoped for, I should be on my beam ends?"

"My dear fellow, I supposed you had got it. Hearing nothing of you all day, I concluded it had come by the morning's post."

"It had not come then," returned George, crustily. In spite of his blind trust in the unbleached good faith of Mr. Verrall, there were moments when a thought would cross him as to whether that gentleman had been playing a double game. This was one of them.

"I had a hasty summons, and was obliged to come away without delay,"

explained Mr. Verrall. "I sent you a message."

"Which I never received," retorted George. "But the message is not the question. See here! A pretty letter, this, for a man to read. It came by the afternoon post."

Mr. Verrall took the letter, and digested the contents deliberately; in all probability he had known their substance before. "What do you think of it?" demanded George.

"It's unfortunate," said Mr. Verrall.

"It's ruin," returned George.

"Unless averted. But it must be averted."

"How?"

"There is one way, you know," said Mr. Verrall, after a pause. "I have pointed it out to you already."

"And I wish your tongue had been blistered, Verrall, before you ever had pointed it out to me!" foamed George. "There!"

Mr. Verrall raised his impa.s.sive eyebrows. "You must be aware----"

"Man!" interrupted George, his voice hoa.r.s.e with emotion, as he grasped Mr. Verrall's shoulder: "do you know that the temptation, since you suggested it, is ever standing out before me--an _ignis fatuus_, beckoning me on to it! Though I know that it would prove nothing but a curse to engulf me."

"Here, George, take this," said Mr. Verrall, pouring out a large tumbler of sparkling wine, and forcing it upon him. "The worst of you is, that you get so excited over things! and then you are sure to look at them in a wrong light. Just hear me for a moment. The pressure is all at this present moment, is it not? If you can lift it, you will recover yourself fast enough. Has it ever struck you," Mr. Verrall added, somewhat abruptly, "that your brother is fading?"

Remembering the scene with his brother the previous night, George looked very conscious. He simply nodded an answer.

"With Ashlydyat yours, you would recover yourself almost immediately.

There would positively be no risk."

"_No risk!_" repeated George, with emphasis.

"I cannot see that there would be any. Everything's a risk, if you come to that. We are in risk of earthquakes, of a national bankruptcy, of various other calamities: but the risk that would attend the step I suggested to you is really so slight as not to be called a risk. It never can be known: the chances are a hundred thousand to one."

"But there remains the one," persisted George.

"To let an _expose_ come would be an act of madness, at the worst look out: but it is madness and double madness when you may so soon succeed to Ashlydyat."

"Oblige me by not counting upon that, Verrall," said George. "I hope, ill as my brother appears to be, that he may live yet."

"I don't wish to count upon it," returned Mr. Verrall. "It is for you to count upon it, not me. Were I in your place, I should not blind my eyes to the palpable fact. Look here: your object is to get out of this mess?"

"You know it is," said George.

"Very well. I see but one way for you to do it. The money must be raised, and how is that to be done? Why, by the means I suggest. It will never be known. A little time, and things can be worked round again."

"I have been hoping to work things round this long while," said George.

"And they grow worse instead of better."

"Therefore I say that you should not close your eyes to the prospect of Ashlydyat. Sit down. Be yourself again, and let us talk things over quietly."

"You see, Verrall, the risk falls wholly upon me."

"And, upon whom the benefit, for which the risk will be incurred?"

pointedly returned Mr. Verrall.

"It seems to me that I don't get the lion's share of these benefits,"

was George's remark.

"Sit down, I say. Can't you be still? Here, take some more wine. There: now let us talk it over."

And talk it over they did, as may be inferred. For it was a full hour afterwards when George came out. He leaped into the cab, which had waited, telling the man that he must drive as if he were going through fire and water. The man did so: and George arrived at the Paddington station just in time to lose his train.

CHAPTER VII.

BEYOND RECALL.

The clerks were at a stand-still in the banking-house of G.o.dolphin, Crosse, and G.o.dolphin. A certain iron safe had to be opened, and the key was not to be found. There were duplicate keys to it; one of them was kept by Mr. G.o.dolphin, the other by Mr. George. Mr. Hurde, the cashier, appealed to Isaac Hastings.