Part 25 (1/2)

”All that's ever been between us is certainly a very weighty argument, Roddy,” she said with a smile that deepened the ugly lines about her mouth, and gave Lambert a chilly qualm. ”There's a matter of three hundred pounds between us, if that's what you mean.”

”I know, Charlotte,” he said hastily. ”No one remembers that better than I do. But this is a different kind of thing altogether. I'd give you a bill of sale on everything at Rosemount-and there are the horses out here too. Of course, I suppose I might be able to raise the money at the bank or somewhere, but it's a very different thing to deal with a friend, and a friend who can hold her tongue too. You never failed me yet, Charlotte, old girl, and I don't believe you'll do it now!”

His handsome, dark eyes were bent upon her face with all the pathos he was master of, and he was glad to feel tears rising in them.

”Well, I'm afraid that's just what I'll have to do,” she said, flinging away the nail that she had tried to straighten, and fumbling in her pocket for another, ”I may be able to hold my tongue, but I don't hold with throwing good money after bad.”

Lambert stood quite still, staring at her, trying to believe that this was the Charlotte who had trembled when he kissed her, whose love for him had made her his useful and faithful thrall.

”Do you mean to say that you'll see me ruined and disgraced sooner than put out your hand to help me?” he said pa.s.sionately.

”I thought you said you could get the money somewhere else,” she replied, with undisturbed coolness, ”and you might know that coming to me for money is like going to the goat's house for wool. I've got nothing more to lend, and no one ought to know that better than yourself!”

Charlotte was standing, yellow-faced and insolent, opposite to Lambert, with her hands in the pockets of her ap.r.o.n; in every way a contrast to him, with his flushed forehead and suffused eyes. The dull, white light that struck up into the roof from the whitewashed kitchen wall, showed Lambert the furrowed paths of implacability in his adversary's face, as plainly as it showed her his defeat and desperation.

”You've got no more money to lend, d'ye say?” he repeated, with a laugh that showed he had courage enough left to lose his temper; ”I suppose you've got all the money you got eighteen months ago from the old lady lent out! 'Pon my word, considering you got Francie's share of it for yourself, I think it would have been civiller to have given her husband the first refusal of a loan! I daresay I'd have given you as good interest as your friends in Ferry Lane!”

Charlotte's eyes suddenly lost their exaggerated indifference.

”And if she ever had the smallest claim to what ye call a share!” she vociferated, ”haven't you had it twenty times over? Was there ever a time that ye came cringing and crawling to me for money that I refused it to ye? And how do you thank me? By embezzling the money I paid for the land, and then coming to try and get it out of me over again, because Sir Christopher Dysart is taught sense to look into his own affairs, and see how his agent is cheating him!”

Some quality of triumph in her tone, some light of previous knowledge in her eye, struck Lambert.

”Was it you told him?” he said hoa.r.s.ely, ”was it you spoke to Dysart?”