CHAPTER IV.
A QUESTION OF HONOUR Mr.Rae in forty years' experience had never been so seriously disturbed.

To his intense humiliation he found himself abjectly appealing to the senior member of the firm of Thomlinson & Shields.

Not that Mr.Thomlinson was obdurate; in the presence of mere obduracy Mr.
Rae might have found relief in the conscious possession of more generous and humane instincts than those supposed to be characteristic of the members of his profession.

Mr.Thomlinson, however, was anything but obdurate.

He was eager to oblige, but he was helpless.