"
"You are sure you are keeping nothing back? You would not deceive me?
There is nothing more?"
Gibbon hesitated; he was not a man who told lies; and there was something
more. "It seems he made debts--debts that out of his salary it was
impossible for your brother to pay."
"Yes?"
"But he did pay them."
"He did? Then--?"
"You see, Miss Deleah, they're wishful to know where he got the money from
to pay with."
She looked at him with knit brows anxiously for a minute, then her face
cleared and a glad light was in her eyes. "Why, I can tell them!" she
said, "I sent him the money to pay the debts."
"It was fifty pounds--about. _You_ sent it?"
"Oh, the money was not mine. It was Sir Francis Forcus's money. I asked
him for it. You can tell them I sent it, Mr. Gibbon; but tell them no
more. Sir Francis wished it to be a secret between him and me."
"Oh!" Gibbon said, and roughly shook her hand from his arm.
"You don't believe me?"
"I believe you fast enough; oh, yes."
"Then why are you angry?"
"You might have come to me. Why didn't you come to me?"
"Oh, I don't know," Deleah said. The several reasons she could have given
it seemed kinder to withhold.
He pounced upon her, his eyes blazing.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222