make the date at which
the loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and there
was his father-in-law's money at his disposal, or at his wife's
disposal--which meant the same thing. "It's well I pressed Graybrooke
about the marriage when I did!" he thought. "I can borrow the money at a
short date. In three months from this Natalie will be my wife."

He drove to his club to get breakfast, with his mind cleared, for the
time being, of all its anxieties but one.

Knowing where he could procure the loan, he was by no means equally sure
of being able to find the security on which he could borrow the
money. Living up to his income; having no expectations from any living
creature; possessing in landed property only some thirty or forty
acres in Somersetshire, with a quaint little dwelling, half farm house,
half-cottage, attached--he was incapable of providing the needful
security from his own personal resources. To appeal to wealthy friends
in the City would be to let those friends into the secret of his
embarrassments, and to put his credit in peril. He finished his
breakfast, and went back to Austin Friars--failing entirely, so far, to
see how he was to remove the last obstacle now left in his way.

The doors were open to the public; business had begun. He had not been
ten minutes in his room before the shipping-clerk knocked at the door
and interrupted him, still absorbed in his own anxious thoughts.

"What is it?" he asked, irritably.

"Duplicate Bills of Lading, sir," answered the clerk, placing the
documents on his ma ster's table.

Found! There was the security on his writing-desk, staring him in the
face! He dismissed the clerk and examined the papers.

They contained an account of goods shipped to the London house on board
vessels sailing from Smyrna and Odessa, and they were signed by the
masters of the ships, who thereby acknowledged the receipt of the goods,
and undertook to deliver them safely to the persons owning them, as
directed. First copies of these papers had already been placed in the
possession of the London house. The duplicates had now followed, in
case of accident. Richard Turlington instantly determined to make the
duplicates serve as his security, keeping the first copies privately
under lock and key, to be used in obtaining possession of the goods
at the customary time. The fraud was a fraud in appearance only. The
security was a pure formality. His marriage would supply him with t