Vont rose slowly to his feet. His knees were trembling. He seemed to be looking into a mist. His hands shook as he laid them on David's shoulders.
"Thank God!" he muttered. "David, boy, remember. This light talk is like an April shower on the warm earth. Goodness and sin are the same now as a thousand years ago, and they will be the same in a thousand years to come. We may pipe a new tune, but it's only the Devil's children that dance to it--sin must be punished. There's no getting over that! Forgiveness later maybe--but first comes punishment."
A queer atmosphere of depression seemed about this time to have affected the two inhabitants of Number 94 Grosvenor Square. The Marquis had suddenly become aware of an aimlessness in life which not even his new financial hopes enabled him to combat. The night of his weekly dinner at Trewly's he spent in the entertainment of three ancient whist companions, and it was not until they had gone and he was left alone in the silent house that he realised how empty and profitless the evening had been. Day by day, after lunch, he sent out the same message to his chauffeur--five o'clock for the club instead of three o'clock for Battersea, and on each occasion the words seemed to leave his lips with more reluctance. He walked each morning in the Park, as carefully dressed and as upright as ever, but one or two of his acquaintances noticed a certain difference. There was an increased pallor, a listlessness of gait, which seemed to bespeak an absent or a preoccupied mind. He even welcomed the coming, one morning just as he was starting for his promenade, of Mr. Wadham, Junior. Here at least was diversion.
Mr. Wadham, Junior, had been rehearsing his interview and his prospective deportment towards the Marquis on the way up, and he started the enterprise to his own entire satisfaction. He entered the library with an exceedingly serious air, and he took great pains to be sure that the door was closed after the retreating butler before he did more than respond to his distinguished client's greeting.
"Anything fresh, Wadham?" the latter enquired.
"I have ventured to see your lordship once more," Mr. Wadham began, "with reference to the scrip which we deposited at the bank to meet certain liabilities on your behalf."
