Horror stared from her pale eyes.

She had known, from the beginning, of that twenty thousand pounds' worth of stock, and she had had--with his lordship--her anxious moments when the disclosures were being made six months ago that had brought the Craggses, Aislabie and a half-dozen others to shame and ruin.
His lordship looked at her a moment.

"And if this shipwreck comes, as it now threatens," he continued, "it is my son I shall have to thank for't." She found voice to ask: "How so ?" courage to put the question scornfully.

"Is it not rather Rotherby you have to thank that the disclosures did not come six months ago?
What was it saved you but the friendship his Grace of Wharton had for Charles ?" "Why, then," stormed his lordship, "did he not see to't that he preserved that friendship?
It but needed a behavior of as much decency and honor as Wharton exacts in his associates--and the Lord knows how much that is!" he sneered.

"As it is, he has gone even lower than that abandoned scourer; so low that even this rakehell duke must become his enemy for his own credit's sake.