"To ask for your lordship's instructions as to the payment of twelve hundred pounds interest, due to-morrow," Mr. Wadham replied. "We have eight hundred pounds in hand from Mr. Merridrew. So far from having any other funds of your lordship's at our disposal, we are, as I have pointed out, your creditor for a somewhat considerable amount." The Marquis was leaning back in his chair, the tips of his long, elegant fingers pressed gently together. "It appears to me, Mr. Wadham," he said quietly, "that your visit is, in a sense, an admonitory one. Your firm resents--am I not right?--the fact that I have found it convenient to help myself to a portion of the revenue accruing from my estate." "We should not presume for a moment to take up such an attitude," the lawyer protested. "On the other hand, the four hundred pounds in question requires replacement by to-morrow." "And you find the raising of that sum inconvenient, eh, Mr. Wadham?" The young man was distinctly ill at ease. His instructions were to be firm and dignified but by no means to offend; to deliver a formal protest against this tampering with funds already dedicate, but to do or say nothing which would give the Marquis any excuse for reprisals against the firm. Mr. Wadham began to wonder whether perhaps he was a person of small tact, or whether these instructions were more than usually difficult to carry out. "There is no sacrifice, your lordship," he said slowly, "which my firm would hesitate to make in your interests and the interests of the Mandeleys estate. At the same time, the unexpected necessity for finding these sums of money is, I must confess, at times a strain upon us." The Marquis nodded sympathetically. He rose to his feet, crossed the room towards his desk, which he unlocked with a key attached to a gold chain, and returned with a bundle of scrip in his hand. "I have here, Mr. Wadham," he announced, "scrip in a very famous oil company, the face value of the shares being, I believe, a trifle over forty thousand pounds. I, in fact, paid that price for them at the beginning of the week." The young lawyer uncrossed his legs and swallowed hard. He was prepared for many shocks, but this one seemed outside the region of all human probability. "Did I understand your lordship to say that you had paid forty thousand pounds for them?" he gasped. The Marquis assented with an equable little nod.