"You will misunderstand me. I think no such thing. But do you not know yourself that if legal steps be taken in this wretched affair, your arrangements with Sowerby will be brought to light?"
"My arrangements with Sowerby will consist in paying or having to pay, on his account, a large sum of money, for which I have never had and shall never have any consideration whatever."
"And what will be said about this stall at Barchester?"
"After the charge which you brought against me just now, I shall decline to accept it."
At this moment three or four other gentlemen entered the room, and the conversation between our two friends was stopped. They still remained standing near the fire, but for a few moments neither of them said any thing. Robarts was waiting till Lord Lufton should go away, and Lord Lufton had not yet said that which he had come to say. At last he spoke again, almost in a whisper: "I think it will be best to ask Sowerby to come to my rooms to-morrow, and I think also that you should meet him there."
"I do not see any necessity for my presence," said Robarts. "It seems probable that I shall suffer enough for meddling with your affairs, and I will do so no more."
"Of course I can not make you come; but I think it will be only just to Sowerby, and it will be a favor to me."
Robarts again walked up and down the room for half a dozen times, trying to resolve what it would most become him to do in the present emergency. If his name were dragged before the courts—if he should be shown up in the public papers as having been engaged in accommodation bills, that would certainly be ruinous to him. He had already learned from Lord Lufton's innuendoes what he might expect to hear as the public version of his share in these transactions! And then his wife—how would she bear such exposure?
"I will meet Mr. Sowerby at your rooms to-morrow on one condition," he at last said.
"And what is that?"
"That I receive your positive assurance that I am not suspected by you of having had any pecuniary interest whatever in any money matters with Mr. Sowerby, either as concerns your affairs or those of any body else."
