“As to you personally, Mark,” he said, coming back to the spot on which Robarts was standing, “I do not wish to say anything that shall annoy you.” “You have said quite enough, Lord Lufton.” “You cannot be surprised that I should be angry and indignant at the treatment I have received.” “You might, I think, have separated in your mind those who have wronged you, if there has been such wrong, from those who have only endeavoured to do your will and pleasure for you. That I, as a clergyman, have been very wrong in taking any part whatsoever in these matters, I am well aware. That as a man I have been outrageously foolish in lending my name to Mr. Sowerby, I also know well enough: it is perhaps as well that I should be told of this somewhat rudely; but I certainly did not expect the lesson to come from you.” “Well, there has been mischief enough. The question is, what we had better now both do?” “You have said what you mean to do. You will put the affair into the hands of your lawyer.” “Not with any object of exposing you.” “Exposing me, Lord Lufton! Why, one would think that I had had the handling of your money.” “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 minutes neither of them said anything. 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 cannot make you come; but I think it will be only just to Sowerby, and it will be a favour 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?