distrust of his father's friend, who, on his own showing, had made some proposal dishonourable in the eyes of a high-principled man. Moreover, it came instinctively to Harry that he had caught a first glimpse of the real Gordon Lowndes, with his cunning eyes flashing behind his pince-nez, the gestures of a stump orator, and this stream of unintelligible jargon gushing from his lips. The last sentences, however, were plain enough even to Harry's understanding. 

 "You said you'd raise it," he repeated dryly; "yet you can't have done so." 

 "I raised ten thousand." 

 "Only half; well?" 

 "It was no use." 

 "My father would refuse to touch it?" 

 "N-no." 

 "Then what did he do?" 

 Lowndes drew back a pace, saying nothing, but watching the boy with twitching eyelids. 

 "Come, sir, speak out!" cried Harry, "He will tell me himself, you know, when I get back to London." 

 "He is not there." 

 "You said he was!" 

 "I said your mother was." 

 "Where is my father, then?" 

 "On the Continent—we think." 

 "You think? And the—ten thousand pounds?" 

 "He has it with him," said Lowndes, in a low voice. "I'm sorry to say he—bolted with the lot!" 

 

 Prev. P 13/223 next