"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in which I have stood
by you, I think this sort of reproach is useless," Sir Pitt said.
"Your marriage was your own doing, not mine."
"That's over now," said Rawdon. "That's over now." And the words were
wrenched from him with a groan, which made his brother start.
"Good God! is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice of genuine alarm
and commiseration.
"I wish I was," Rawdon replied. "If it wasn't for little Rawdon I'd
have cut my throat this morning--and that damned villain's too."
Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that Lord Steyne was
the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The Colonel told his
senior briefly, and in broken accents, the circumstances of the case.
"It was a regular plan between that scoundrel and her," he said. "The
bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going out of his house;
when I wrote to her for money, she said she was ill in bed and put me
off to another day. And when I got home I found her in diamonds and
sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to describe hurriedly
the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To an affair of that nature,
of course, he said, there was but one issue, and after his conference
with his brother, he was going away to make the necessary arrangements
for the meeting which must ensue. "And as it may end fatally with me,"
Rawdon said with a broken voice, "and as the boy has no mother, I must
leave him to you and Jane, Pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you
will promise me to be his friend."
The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon's hand with a
cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon passed his hand over his
shaggy eyebrows. "Thank you, brother," said he. "I know I can trust
your word."
"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said. And thus, and almost
mutely, this bargain was struck between them.
Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book which he had
discovered in Becky's desk, and from which he drew a bundle of the
notes which it contained. "Here's six hundred," he said--"you didn't
know I was so rich. I want you to give the money to Briggs, who lent
it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and I've always felt ashamed of
having taken the poor old woman's money. And here's some more--I've
only kept back a few pounds--which Becky may as well have, to get on
with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes to give to his
brother, but his hands shook, and he was so agitated that the
pocket-book fell from him, and out of it the thousand-pound note which
had been the last of the unlucky Becky's winnings.