Ovington's Bank by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

In ordinary times, news is slow to make its way to the ears of the great. Protected from the vulgar by his deer park, looking out from the stillness of his tall-windowed library on his plantations and his ornamental water, Sir Charles Woosenham was removed by six miles of fine champaign country from the common fret and fume of Aldersbury. He no longer maintained, as his forefathers had maintained, a house in the town, and in all likelihood he would not have heard the talk about the bank, or caught the alarm in time, if one of his neighbors had not made it his business to arouse him.

Acherley, baffled in his attempt at blackmail, and thirsting for revenge, had bethought him of the Chairman of the Valleys Railroad. He had been quick to see that he could use him, and perhaps he had even fancied that it was his duty to use him. At any rate, one fine morning, some days before this eventful Wednesday, he had mounted his old hunter, Nimrod, and had cantered across country by gaps and gates from Acherley to Woosenham Park. He had entered by a hunting wicket, and leaping the ha-ha, he had presented himself to Sir Charles ten minutes after the latter had left the breakfast table, and withdrawn himself after his fashion of a morning, into a dignified seclusion.