"Yes, why indeed?" echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Rickie, but from a purer motive: he had tried to stamp out a dissension between husband and wife. It was not the first time he had intervened.
"The letter. For this reason: it will show me what you have done.
I believe you have ruined Stephen. you have worked at it for two years. You have put words into my mouth to 'turn the scale' against him. He goes to Canada--and all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I said before--I advise you to stop smiling--you have gone a little too far."They were all on their feet now, standing round the little table.
Agnes said nothing, but the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon the letter. When her husband snatched at it she resisted, and with the effect of a harlequinade everything went on the floor--lamb, mint sauce, gooseberries, lemonade, whisky.
At once they were swamped in domesticities. She rang the bell for the servant, cries arose, dusters were brought, broken crockery (a wedding present) picked up from the carpet; while he stood wrathfully at the window, regarding the obscured sun's decline.
"I MUST see her letter," he repeated, when the agitation was over. He was too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only slight emotions are thwarted by an interlude of farce.
"I've had enough of this quarrelling," she retorted. "You know that the Silts are inaccurate. I think you might have given me the benefit of the doubt. If you will know--have you forgotten that ride you took with him.?""I--" he was again bewildered. "The ride where I dreamt--""The ride where you turned back because you could not listen to a disgraceful poem?""I don't understand."
"The poem was Aunt Emily. He read it to you and a stray soldier.
Afterwards you told me. You said, 'Really it is shocking, his ingratitude. She ought to know about it' She does know, and Ishould be glad of an apology."
He had said something of the sort in a fit of irritation. Mrs.
Silt was right--he had helped to turn the scale.
"Whatever I said, you knew what I meant. You knew I'd sooner cut my tongue out than have it used against him. Even then." He sighed. Had he ruined his brother? A curious tenderness came over him, and passed when he remembered his own dead child. "We have ruined him, then. Have you any objection to 'we'? We have disinherited him.""I decide against you," interposed Herbert. "I have now heard both sides of this deplorable affair. You are talking most criminal nonsense. 'Disinherit!' Sentimental twaddle. It's been clear to me from the first that Mrs. Failing has been imposed upon by the Wonham man, a person with no legal claim on her, and any one who exposes him performs a public duty--""--And gets money."
"Money?" He was always uneasy at the word. "Who mentioned money?""Just understand me, Herbert, and of what it is that I accuse my wife." Tears came into his eyes. "It is not that I like the Wonham man, or think that he isn't a drunkard and worse. He's too awful in every way. But he ought to have my aunt's money, because he's lived all his life with her, and is her nephew as much as Iam. You see, my father went wrong." He stopped, amazed at himself. How easy it had been to say! He was withering up: the power to care about this stupid secret had died.
When Herbert understood, his first thought was for Dunwood House.
"Why have I never been told?" was his first remark.
