capable of such
treachery as borrowing on a _post-obit_.'

He walked about furiously, stammering interrogations on the mode of her
discovery, and, as she explained, storming at her for having brought this
down on him by the folly of putting 'that thing into the _Times_.' Why
could she not have stayed away, instead of meddling where she was not
wanted?

'I thought myself wanted when my brother was in trouble,' said Lucilla,
mournfully, raising her face, which she had bent between her hands at the
first swoop of the tempest. 'Heaven knows, I had no thought of spying.
I came to stand by your wife, and comfort you. I only learnt all this in
trying to shield you from intrusion. Oh, would that I knew it not!
Would that I could think of you as I did an hour ago! Oh, Owen, though I
have never shared your fondness for Honor Charlecote, I thought it
genuine; I did not scorn it as fortune-hunting.'

'It was not! It never was!' cried the poor boy. 'Honor! Poor Honor!
Lucy, I doubt if I could have felt for my mother as I do for her. Oh, if
you could guess how I long for her dear voice in my ears, her soft hand
on my head--' and he sank into his chair, hiding his face and sobbing
aloud.

'Am I to believe that, when--' began Lucilla, slowly.

'The last resource of desperation,' cried Owen. 'What could I do with
such a drain upon me; the old woman for ever clamouring for money, and
threatening exposure? My allowance? Poor Honor meant well, but she gave
me just enough to promote expensive habits without supplying them. There
was nothing to fall back on--except the ways of the Castle Blanch folk.'

'Betting?'

He nodded. 'So when it went against me, and people would have it that I
had expectations, it was not for me to contradict them. It was their
business, not mine, to look out for themselves, and pretty handsomely
they have done so. It would have been a very different percentage if I
had been an eldest son. As it is, my bond is--what is it for, Lucy?'

'Six hundred.'

'How much do you think I have touched of that? Not two! Of that,
three-fourths went to the harpies I fell in with at Paris, under
Charles's auspices--and five-and-twenty there'--pointing in the direction
of Whittington-street.

'Will the man be satisfied with the two hundred?'

'Don't he wish he may get it? But, Lucy, you are not to make a mess of
it. I give you warning I shall go, and never be heard of more, if Honor
is applied to.'