"Humph!" said Tomlinson; "and what is to become of us? Really, my
captain, your sense of duty should lead you to exert yourself; your
friends starve before your eyes, while you are shilly-shallying about
your mistress. Have you no bowels for friendship?"

"A truce with this nonsense!" said Clifford, angrily.

"It is sense,--sober sense,--and sadness too," rejoined Tomlinson. "Ned
is discontented, our debts are imperious. Suppose, now,--just suppose,--
that we take a moonlight flitting from Bath, will that tell well for you
whom we leave behind? Yet this we must do, if you do not devise some
method of refilling our purses. Either, then, consent to join us in a
scheme meet for our wants, or pay our debts in this city, or fly with us
to London, and dismiss all thoughts of that love which is so seldom
friendly to the projects of ambition."

Notwithstanding the manner in which Tomlinson made this threefold
proposition, Clifford could not but acknowledge the sense and justice
contained in it; and a glance at the matter sufficed to show how ruinous
to his character, and therefore to his hopes, would be the flight of his
comrades and the clamour of their creditors.

"You speak well, Tomlinson," said he, hesitating; "and yet for the life
of me I cannot aid you in any scheme which may disgrace us by detection.
Nothing can reconcile me to the apprehension of Miss Brandon's
discovering who and what was her suitor."

"I feel for you," said Tomlinson, "but give me and Pepper at least
permission to shift for ourselves; trust to my known prudence for finding