"
"But, Lufton, I cannot allow you--after what has passed--and at the
present moment--"
"My dear fellow, I know all about it, and I am coming to that just
now. You have employed Curling, and he shall settle it; and upon my
word, Mark, you shall pay the bill. But, for the present emergency,
the money is at my banker's."
"But, Lufton--"
"And to deal honestly, about Curling's bill I mean, it ought to be as
much my affair as your own. It was I that brought you into this mess
with Sowerby, and I know now how unjust about it I was to you up in
London. But the truth is that Sowerby's treachery had nearly driven
me wild. It has done the same to you since, I have no doubt."
"He has ruined me," said Robarts.
"No, he has not done that. No thanks to him though; he would not have
scrupled to do it had it come in his way. The fact is, Mark, that you
and I cannot conceive the depth of fraud in such a man as that. He
is always looking for money; I believe that in all his hours of most
friendly intercourse,--when he is sitting with you over your wine,
and riding beside you in the field,--he is still thinking how he can
make use of you to tide him over some difficulty. He has lived in
that way till he has a pleasure in cheating, and has become so clever
in his line of life that if you or I were with him again to-morrow he
would again get the better of us.
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