Hester

of her money was in it, and that she had in fact a right to be consulted as a partner. So it had been settled, it was said, by the old man in his will. But she had never, so far as anybody knew, taken up this privilege. She had never come to the bank, never given a sign of having any active interest in it. What then could she be expected to do? What could she do even if she wished to help them? Mr. Rule was aware that there was no very cordial feeling between her cousin’s house and hers. They were friends, perfectly good friends, but they were not cordial. While he turned over these thoughts in his mind, however, he walked on steadily and quickly without the least hesitation in his step. There was even a sort of exhilarated excitement in him, a sentiment quite different from that with which he had been disconsolately straying about, and painfully turning over possibilities, or rather impossibilities. Perhaps it was a half romantic pleasure in the idea of speaking to Miss Vernon again, but really there was something besides that, a sense of satisfaction in finding a new and capable mind to consult with at least, if no more.

Miss Vernon lived in the house which her grandfather had lived in and his father before him. To reach it you had to make your way through the delta of little streets into which Wilton Street ran, and across a corner of the common. The Grange was an old house with dark red gables appearing out of the midst of a clump of trees. In winter you saw the whole mass of it, chiefly old bricks, though these were thrown up and made picturesque by the fact that the oldest part was in grey stone. Broad large Elizabethan windows glimmered, lighted up, through the thick foliage this evening; for by this time the summer night was beginning to get dark, and a good deal too late for a visit. Mr. Rule thought as he knocked at the door that it was very likely she would not see him. But this was not the case. When he sent in his name as the head clerk at the bank he was received immediately, and shown into the room with the Elizabethan windows where she was sitting. By this time she was of mature years, and naturally much changed from the young girl he had known. He had been one of the young clerks in the outer office, whom she would recognise with a friendly smiling look, and a nod of her head all round. Now, however, Miss Vernon came up to him, and held out her hand to Mr. Rule. “You need not have sent me word who you were,” she said with a smile. “I knew quite well who you were. I never forget faces nor names. You have not come to me at this time of night on a mere visit of civility. Don’t be afraid to tell me at once whatever there may be to say.”

“From the way you speak, ma’am,” said Mr. Rule, “I conclude that you have heard some of the wicked reports that are flying about?”

“That is exactly what I want to know,” she said, with all her old vivacity. “Are they wicked reports?”

“A report is always wicked,” said Mr. Rule sententiously, “which is likely to bring about the evil it imagines.”

“Ah!” she cried. “Then it is no further gone than that; and yet it is as far gone as that?” she added, looking anxiously in his face.

“Miss Vernon,” said Rule solemnly, “I expect a run upon the bank tomorrow.”

“Good God!” she said, clasping her hands; which was not a profane exclamation, but the kind of half-conscious appeal which nature makes instinctively. “But you have made all preparations? Surely you can meet that.”

He shook his head solemnly. The credit of the bank was so much to him that when thus face to face with the event he dreaded, poor Rule could not articulate anything, and the water stood in his eyes.

“Good God!” she said again: but her face was not awestricken; it was that of a soldier springing instantly to the alert, rallying all his resources at the first word of danger; “but you don’t mean to say that my cousin⁠—does not John know this? They say everybody knows these things before the person concerned. Why, why did you not warn him, Mr. Rule?”

Rule shook his head.

“It isn’t possible that he could have been ignorant. How could he be ignorant, ma’am? God knows I have not a word to say against Mr. Vernon⁠—but to think he should forsake us in our moment of trial!”

“Forsake you!” A sudden flush flew over Miss Vernon’s face⁠—a spark shot out of her eyes. Indignation and yet doubt was in her face. “That is not possible,” she cried, holding her head high; and then she said anxiously, “Mr. Rule, tell me what you mean?”

“I dare say it is the falsity of appearances,” said poor Rule. “I am sure I hope so. I hope Mr. Vernon has gone away to get help, personally: you can do that so much better than writing: and that he may be back in time tomorrow.”

“Has he gone away?” she said in a low tone.

“Unfortunately, Miss Vernon⁠—I can’t help saying unfortunately, for it paralyses everybody else. We can do nothing at the bank. But I cling to the hope that he will be back before the bank is opened. Oh, yes, I cling to the hope. Without that⁠—”

“Everything will be lost?”

“Everything!” cried he, who was so proud of being the head clerk at Vernon’s, with tears in his eyes.

And then there was a pause. For a minute or two not a word was said. The daughter of the house was as much overcome by the thought as was its faithful servant. At last she said faintly, but firmly⁠—

“Mr. Rule, I cannot believe but that you will see John