"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow." And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled. "I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, bear £5000 more." "A hard pull on it. You had really better sell." "I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley Egerton is done up--his property is for sale.'" "It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may be yet!" "Be yet! How?" Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors--thick and impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that might give as each a hundred thousand pounds. We would go shares." "Levy," said Egerton coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face, "you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have told you that long ago." The Baron laughed, without evincing the least displeasure. "Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with emphasis, "to borrow it, without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?" Egerton started as if stung. "You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed, passionately. "I accept pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange! I!" "Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of that little act in your life which--" "Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!" He stopped, and paced the room, muttering in broken sentences, "To blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!" Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned abruptly. "Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure--"you hate me--why, I know not. I have never injured you--never avenged the inexpiable wrong you did me." "Wrong!--you a man of the world! Wrong! Call it so if you will, then," he added shrinkingly, for Audley's brow grew terrible. "But have I not atoned it? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management--my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been--perhaps a beggar?" "What shall I be now if I live? _Then_ I should not have been a beggar; poor perhaps in money, but rich--rich in all that now leaves my life bankrupt. Gold has not thriven with me; how should it? And this fortune--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!"