es; I daresay the separation seems rather a hardship; but you are
young enough to stand a few months' delay. When do you sail?"

"To-morrow."

"So soon?"

"Yes. It is a case in which everything depends upon rapidity of action. I
leave Liverpool to-morrow afternoon. I came up from Lidford to-day on
purpose to spend a few farewell hours with you. And I have been thinking,
Jack, that you might run down to Liverpool with me to-morrow, and see the
last of me, eh, old fellow?"

John Saltram hesitated, looking doubtfully at his papers.

"It would be only a kind thing to do, Jack, and a wholesome change for
yourself into the bargain. Anything would be better for you than being
shut up in these chambers another day."

"Well, Gilbert, I'll go with you," said Mr. Saltram presently with a kind
of recklessness. "It is a small thing to do for friendship. Yes, I'll see
you off, dear boy. Egad, I wish I could go to Australia with you. I
would, if it were not for my engagements with the children and sundry
other creditors. I think a new country might do me good. But there's no
use in talking about that. I'm bound hand and foot to the old one."

"That reminds me of something I had to say to you, John. There must have
been some reason for your leaving Lidford in that sudden way the other
day, and your note explained nothing. I thought you and I had no secrets
from each other, It's scarcely fair to treat me like that."

"The business was hardly worth explaining," answered the other moodily.
"A bill that I had forgotten for the time fell due just then, and I
hurried off to set things straight."

"Let me help you somehow or other, Jack."

"No, Gilbert; I will never suffer you to become entangled in the
labyrinth of my affairs. You don't know what a hopeless wilderness you
would enter if you were desperate enough to attempt my rescue. I have
been past redemption for the last ten years, ever since I left Oxford.
Nothing but a rich marriage will ever set me straight; and I sometimes
doubt if that game is worth the candle, and whether it would not be
better to make a clean sweep of my engagements, offer up my name to the
execration of mankind and the fiery indignation of solvent
journalists,--who would find subject for sensation leaders in my
iniquities,--emigrate, and turn bushranger. A wild free life in the
wilderness must be a happy exchange for all the petty worries and
perplexities of this cursed existence."

"And how about Mrs