Mr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred in
him by that interview--heightened by the sight of Raeburn--that had
driven him past recall by the most natural of transitions, into his
declaration to Marcella.

But he had no sooner reached his room than, at first with iron will, he
put the thought of Marcella, of the scene which had just passed, away
from him. His pulses were still quivering. No matter! It was the brain
he had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work.

Mr. Pearson? Well!--Mr. Pearson had offered him a _bribe_; there could
be no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter for
an instant. Nor had he any illusions as to his own behaviour. Even now
he had no further right to the sleep of the honest man.

Let him realise, however, what had happened. He had gone to Lady
Masterton's party, in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is upon
him, and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and
_eau de vie_ before the knife falls. Never had things looked so
desperate; never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted.
Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed property
would pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might be
ultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment,
socially and politically undone.

There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce.
Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her;
and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate
claim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternately
attracted and repelled her.

Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted.

Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against the
window-frame close to the spot where, a quarter of an hour later,
Marcella had sat among the flowers--the dapper figure, the long, fair
moustaches, the hand playing with the eye-glass.

"I have been asked--er--er--" What a conceited manner the fellow
had!--"to get some conversation with you, Mr. Wharton, on the subject of
the Damesley strike. You give me leave?"

Whereupon, in less than ten minutes, the speaker had executed an
important commission, and, in offering Wharton a bribe of the most
bare-faced kind, had also found time for supplying him with a number of
the most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it.

The masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully