It meant that to the house which he visited so often, receiving hospitality, kindness, and a sense of almost family well-being, for which he gave back nothing but a steady, undemonstrative friendship, the moment had now come when he must go in another character--in the character, indeed, of an anxious brother and helper, but yet as announcing an approaching catastrophe and the breaking-up of a superstructure of long-established prosperity and peace. He had not been convinced of the necessity of this till to-day. Whispers, indeed, had come to his ears of doubtful speculations and a position which was beginning to be assailed by questions which never should arise as to the position of a man in business. But he had lent a deaf ear to all that was malicious, and brushed away all friendly fears. “Bob D’yell’s as sensible a fellow as ever stepped. It’ll take strong evidence to make me believe that he’s been playing ducks and drakes with his money.” This confident speech from a man of Pat Wedderburn’s authority (in Edinburgh, as in fashionable circles, the well-known members of the community are generally distinguished by their Christian names) had done much to support a credit which was not so robust as it had been. But this morning Mr. Wedderburn had heard very unpleasant things--things which had gone to his heart, and wounded both his affection and his pride. He had a pride in his friend’s credit as in his own. And when he thought of the cheerful household and all its innocent indulgences, Mr. Wedderburn struck the table with his fist in the trouble of his heart. To think that they might have to leave Yalton, to give up their little luxuries, their social rank, all the pleasures of their life, affected this old bachelor as probably it would not at all affect themselves. He could have shed angry tears over the “putting down” of Mrs. Dalyell’s carriage and the girls’ ponies, which, if it came to that, and they were aware that their position required such sacrifices, these ladies would give up without a murmur; and, perhaps, none of them would have much objection to come “in” to a house in Edinburgh instead of Yalton, which was a possibility which made Mr. Wedderburn swear. He was very unhappy about them, one and all, and about his life-long friend, Bob D’yell, who must no doubt have been in the wrong, and whom sometimes in his heart he blamed angrily and bitterly, thinking what the effect of his rashness would be to the others. Pat Wedderburn was grieved to the heart. He could as easily have believed in himself going wrong; “But, God bless us!” he said to himself, “it’s not going wrong. He has been taken in; he was always a sanguine fellow, and he’s been deceived.” His thoughts finally resolved themselves into the necessity, above and before all things, of having a long talk with Bob; and he repeated, as he once more stared mechanically out of the further window, “I must go out to-night.”