We went through the whole of the old
story, to see if there were any hope; and when he found that Tom
Vivian was dead, and George Proudfoot too, without a word about him,
he seemed to think it hopeless. He believes that Proudfoot at
least, if not Moy, was deeply in debt to Vivian, though not to that
extent, and that Vivian probably incited them to 'borrow' from my
mother's letter. He was very likely to undertake to get the draft
cashed for them, and not to account for the difference. It may have
helped to hasten his catastrophe. Moy I never should have
suspected; Archie says he should once have done so as little; but he
was a plausible fellow, and would do things on the sly, while all
along appearing to old Proudfoot as a mentor to George. Archie
seemed to feel his prosperity the bitterest pill of all--reigning
like one of the squirearchy at Proudfoot Lawn--a magistrate
forsooth, with his daughter figuring as an heiress. One thing worth
note--Archie says, that when it was too late, he remembered that the
under-clerk, Gadley, might not have gone home, and might have heard
him explain that the letter had turned up.
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