“For you, Mrs. Mowbray?” he said, “think what you are saying. You would like me to betray my old friend, and balk his intentions, and to disturb a number of families and snatch from them what they have been accustomed to consider as a free gift, and probably in no circumstances expected to refund--for you. For you, for what? that your son, having a great deal already, should have a little more,” (here she attempted to interrupt him to say, “No, no, not having had a great deal, never having had much!” which his stronger voice bore down and penetrated through), “that you should add some luxuries to your wealthy estate. No, Mrs. Mowbray, no. I am astonished that you should ask it of me. If I could do it, I should despise myself.” What high ground he took! and he felt himself justified in taking it. He was buoyed up over all personal motives of his own by a lofty realisation of the general question. There were many others concerned as well as he. What right would he have to betray the fact that poor Horsburgh, for instance, had received a loan from Mr. Anderson to establish him in business? If Mr. Anderson’s heirs proceeded against Horsburgh, who was still painfully keeping his head above water, the result would be ruin--all to put another hundred pounds, perhaps, in Frank Mowbray’s pocket, an idle lad who already had plenty, and never did a hand’s turn. And she thought to come over him and make him do that by the glamour of a pair of middle-aged eyes, and the flatteries of an antiquated smile? The man was angry with the woman’s folly and revolted by her pretensions. No, he would not betray poor Horsburgh. Was not this the meaning after all, and a nobler meaning than he had ever thought of, of the proceedings of the unjust steward? Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fourscore. _Thy_ bill; not mine, did not that make all the difference in the world? Not for me, but for poor Horsburgh. The woman was mad to think that for her, a woman who wanted nothing, he would sacrifice a struggling family: not to say that, even now, poor Horsburgh was, as it were, looking ruin in the face. CHAPTER XIV. ANOTHER AGENT.