Part 33 (2/2)

Dolores hung her head. 'I didn't,' she said.

'But how did it get out of your possession?' said her uncle. 'You are sure this is your own writing at the back. It could surely not have been stolen from her?' he added to the stranger.

'That could hardly be,' said that person. 'Miss Mohun, you had better speak out. To whom did you give this cheque?'

There was a whirl of terror all round about Dolores, a horror of bringing herself first, then Uncle Alfred, Constance, and everybody else into trouble. She took refuge in uttering not a word.

'Dolores,' said her uncle, and his tone was now much more grave and less tender, thus increasing her terror; 'this silence is of no use. Did you give this cheque to Mr. Flinders?'

In the silence, the ticks of the clock on the mantel-piece seemed like a hammer beating on her ears. Dolores thought of the morning's flat denial of all intercourse with Flinders! Then the word give occurred to her as a loophole, and her mind did not embrace all the consequences of the denial, she only saw one thing at a time, 'I didn't give it,' she answered, almost inaudibly.

'You did not give it?' repeated her uncle, getting angry and speaking loud. 'Then how did it get into his hands? Is there no truth in you?' he added, after a pause, which only terrified her more and more. 'Whom did you give it to?'

'Constance!' The word came out she hardly knew how, as something which at least was true. Colonel Mohun knocked at the door of the room she had come from. It was instantly opened, and Miss Hacket began, 'The poor dear! Can I get anything for her, I am sure it is a terrible shock!'

and as he stood, astonished, Gillian added, 'Oh! I see it isn't that. We were afraid it was something about Uncle Maurice.'

'No, my dear, no such thing. Only would Miss Constance Hacket be kind enough to come here a minute?'

'Oh! My ap.r.o.n! My fingers! Excuse me for being such a figure!' Constance ran on, as Colonel Mohun made her come across to the room opposite, where she looked about her in amazement. Was the stranger a publisher about to make her an offer for the 'Waif of the Moorland.' But Dolores's down-cast att.i.tude and set, sullen face forbade the idea.

'Miss Constance Hacket,' said the colonel, 'here is an uncomfortable matter in which we want your a.s.sistance. Will you kindly answer a question or two from Mr. Ellis, the manager of the.... Bank?'

Then the manager politely asked her if she had seen the cheque before.

'Yes--why--what's wrong about it? Oh! It is for seventy! Why, Dolores, I thought it was only for seven?'

'It was for seven when you parted with it, then, Miss Hacket,' said the manager; 'let me ask whether you changed it yourself?'

'No,' she said, 'I sent it to--' and there she came to a dead pause, in alarm.

'Did you send it to Mr. Alfred Flinders?' said Mr. Ellis.

'Yes--oh!' another little scream, 'He can't have done it. He can't be such a villain! Your own uncle, Dolores.'

'He is no uncle of Dolores Mohun!' said the colonel. 'He is only the son of her mother's step-mother by her first marriage.'

'Oh, Dolores, then you deceived me!' exclaimed Constance; 'you told me he was your own uncle, or I would never--and oh! my fifteen pounds.

Where is he?'

'That, madam,' said Mr. Ellis, gravely, 'I hope the police may discover.

He has quitted Darminster after having cashed this cheque for seventy pounds. We have already telegraphed to the police to be on the look out for him, but I much fear that it will be too late.'

'Oh! my fifteen pounds! What shall I do? Oh, Dolores, how could you? I shall never trust any one again!'

Perhaps Uncle Reginald felt the same, but he only darted a look upon his niece, which she felt in every nerve, though to his eyes she only stood hard and stolid. The manager, who found Constance's torrent of words as hard to deal with as Dolores's silence, asked for pen and ink, and begged to take down Miss Hacket's statement to lay before a magistrate in case of Flinders's apprehension. It was not very easy to keep her to the point, especially as her chief interest was in her own fifteen pounds, of which Mr. Ellis only would say that she could prosecute the man for obtaining money on false pretences, and this she trusted meant getting it back again. As to the cheque in question, she told how Dolores had entrusted it to her to send to her supposed uncle, Mr.

Flinders, to whom it had been promised the day they went to Darminster, and she was quite ready to depose that when it left her hands, it was only for seven pounds.

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