said he, with his sunny smile. "You are here early this morning."

"I want to say just a word to you in private, Mr. George."

George led the way to his room, talking gaily. He pushed a chair towards Mr. Hastings, and took his own. Never a face more free from care than his; never an eye less troubled. He asked after Mrs. Hastings; asked after Reginald, who was daily expected home from a voyage--whether he had arrived. "Maria dreamt last night that he had returned," said he, laughing, "and told her he was never going to sea again."

Mr. Hastings remembered _his_ dreams--if dreams they could be called. He was beginning to think that he must have had nightmare.

"Mr. George, I have come to you upon a strange errand," he began. "Will you for a few moments regard me as a confidential friend, and treat me as one?"

"I hope it is what I always do, sir," was the reply of George G.o.dolphin.

"Ay; but I want a proof of your friendship this morning. But for my being connected with you by close ties, I should not have so come. Tell me, honestly and confidentially, as between man and man--Is that trust-money safe?"

George looked at Mr. Hastings, his countenance slightly changing. Mr.

Hastings thought he was vexed.

"I do not understand you," he said.

"I have heard a rumour--I have heard, in fact, two rumours--that---- The long and the short of it is this," more rapidly continued Mr. Hastings, "I have heard that there's something doubtful arising with the Bank."

"What on earth do you mean?" exclaimed George G.o.dolphin.

"_Is_ there anything the matter? Or is the Bank as solvent as it ought to be?"

"I should be sorry to think it otherwise," replied George. "I don't understand you. What have you heard?"

"Just what I tell you. A friend spoke to me in private yesterday, when I was at Binham, saying that he had heard a suspicion of something being wrong with the Bank here. You will not be surprised that I thought of the nine thousand pounds I had just paid in."

"Who said it?" asked George. "I'll prosecute him if I can find out."

"I dare say you would. But I have not come here to make mischief. I stopped his repeating it, and I, you know, am safe, so there's no harm done. I have pa.s.sed an uneasy night, and I have come to ask you to tell me the truth in all good faith."

"The Bank is all right," said George. "I cannot imagine how such a report could by any possibility have arisen," he continued, quitting the one point for the other. "There is no foundation for it."

George G.o.dolphin spoke in all good faith when he said he could not tell how the report could have arisen. He really could not. Nothing had transpired at Prior's Ash to give rise to it. Possibly he deemed, in his sanguine temperament, that he spoke in equally good faith, when a.s.suring Mr. Hastings that the Bank was all right: he may have believed that it would so continue.

"The money is safe, then?"

"Perfectly safe."

"Otherwise, you must let me have it out now. Were it to be lost, it would be ruin to me, ruin to the little Chisholms."

"But it is safe," returned George, all the more emphatically, because it would have been remarkably inconvenient, for special reasons, to refund it then to Mr. Hastings. I repeat, that he may have thought it _was_ safe: safe in so far as that the Bank would get along somehow, and could repay it sometime. Meanwhile, the use of it was convenient--how convenient, none knew, except George.

"A packet of deeds has been mislaid; or is missing in some way," resumed George. "They belong to Lord Averil. It must be some version of that which has got abroad--if anything has got abroad."

"Ay," nodded Mr. Hastings. The opinion coincided precisely with what he had expressed to the agent.

"I know of nothing else wrong with the Bank," spoke George. "Were you to ask my brother, I am sure he would tell you that business was never more flourishing. I wish to goodness people could be compelled to concern themselves with their own affairs instead of inventing falsehoods for their friends!"

Mr. Hastings rose. "Your a.s.surance is sufficient, Mr. George: I do not require your brother's word to confirm it. I have asked it of you in all good faith, Maria being the link between us."

"To be sure," replied George; and he shook Mr. Hastings's hand as he went out.

George remained alone, biting the end of his quill pen. To hear that any such rumour was abroad vexed and annoyed him beyond measure. He only hoped that it would not spread far. Some wiseacre must have picked up an inkling about the deeds, and converted it into a doubt upon the Bank's solvency. "I wish I could hang the fools!" muttered George.

His wish was interrupted. Some one came in and said that Mr. Barnaby desired to see him.

"Let him come in," said George.

Mr. Barnaby came in. A simple-looking man of quiet manners, a corn-dealer, who kept an account at the Bank. He had a canvas bag in his hand. George asked him to take a seat.

"I was going to pay in two thousand pounds, sir," said he, slightly lifting the bag to indicate that the money was there. "But I should like, first of all, to be a.s.sured that it's all right."

George sat and stared at him. Was Prior's Ash all going mad together?

George honestly believed that nothing yet had transpired, or could have transpired, to set these doubts afloat. "Really, Mr. Barnaby, I do not understand you," he said, with some hauteur: just as he had answered Mr.

Hastings.

"I called in at Rutt's, sir, as I came along, to know what had been done in that business where I was chiselled out of that load of barley, and I happened to mention that I was coming on here to pay in two thousand pounds. 'Take care that it's all right,' said Rutt. 'I heard the Bank talked about yesterday.' _Is_ it all right, sir?"

"It is as right as the Bank of England," impulsively answered George.

"Rutt shall be brought to account for this."

"Well, I thought it was odd if there _was_ anything up. Then I may leave it with safety?"

"Yes, you may," replied George. "Have you not always found it safe hitherto?"

"That's just it: I couldn't fancy that anything wrong had come to it all of a sudden. I'll go and pay it in then, sir. It won't be for long, though. I shall be wanting it out, I expect, by the end of next week."

"Whenever you please, Mr. Barnaby," replied George.

The corn-dealer retired to leave his money, and George G.o.dolphin sat on alone, biting his pen as before. Where could these rumours have had their rise? Harmlessly enough they might have fallen, had nothing been rotten at the core of affairs: George alone knew how awfully dangerous they might prove now, if they got wind.

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. LAYTON "LOOKED UP."

If the mysterious loss of the deeds disturbed Thomas G.o.dolphin, it was also disturbing, in no slight degree, the faithful old clerk, Mr. Hurde.

Never, since he had entered the house of G.o.dolphin, Crosse, and G.o.dolphin--so many years ago now, that he had almost lost count of them--had any similarly unsatisfactory incident occurred. Mr. Hurde thought and thought and thought it over: he turned it about in his mind, and looked at it in all its bearings. He came to the conclusion that it must be one of two things: either that George G.o.dolphin had inadvertently misplaced it, or that it had been stolen out and out.

George G.o.dolphin said that he had not misplaced it: indeed, George did not acknowledge to any recollection of having visited at all Lord Averil's box, except when he went to make the search: and Mr. G.o.dolphin had now looked in every box that the safe contained, and could not find it. Therefore, after much vacillating between opinions, the head clerk came to the conclusion that the deeds had been taken.

"Who could have done it?" he asked himself over and over again. Some one about them, doubtless. He believed all the clerks were safe; that is, honest; except Layton. Until this happened, he would have said Layton was safe: and it was only in the utter absence of any other quarter for suspicion that he cast a doubt upon Layton. Of the clerks, he felt least sure of Layton: but that was the utmost that could be said: he would not have doubted the man, but that he was seeking for some one to lay it on.

The deeds could not have gone without hands, and Mr. Hurde, in his perplexity, could only think that Layton's hands were less unlikely hands than others'.

The previous evening he had gone home thinking of it. And there he pondered the affair over, while he digested his dry toast and his milkless tea. He was a man of spare habits: partly that his health compelled him to be so; partly from a parsimonious nature. While seated at it, composedly enjoying the ungenerous fare near the open window, who should he see go by, but the very man on whom his thoughts were fixed--Layton. This Layton was a young, good-looking man, an inveterate dandy, with curls and a moustache. That moustache, sober, clean-shaved Mr. Hurde had always looked askance upon. That Layton had been given to spend more than was wise, Prior's Ash knew well enough; but for that fact, he would not now have been a banker's clerk. His family were respectable--wealthy in a moderate way; but he had run through too much of their money and tired them out. For the last two or three years he had settled down to sobriety. Thomas G.o.dolphin had admitted him to a clerkship in his house, and Layton had married, and appeared contented to live quietly.