Connie gave a tremulous laugh.
"Do you think I couldn"t see that you were all dreadfully unhappy about something? I--I made Alice tell me--"
"Alice is a sieve!" cried Nora. "I knew, father, we could never trust her."
"And then"--Connie went on--"I--I did an awful thing. I"d better tell you. I came and looked at Nora"s papers--in the schoolroom drawer. I saw that." She pointed penitentially to a sheet of figures lying on the study table.
Both Nora and her uncle looked up in amazement, staring at her.
"It was at night," she said hurriedly--"last night. Oh, I put it all back!"--she turned, pleading, to Nora--"just as I found it. You shouldn"t be angry with me--you shouldn"t indeed!"
Then her own voice began to shake. She came and laid her hand on her uncle"s shoulder.
"Dear Uncle Ewen--you know, I had that extra money! What did I want with it? Just think--if it had been mamma! Wouldn"t you have let her help?
You know you would! You couldn"t have been so unkind. Well then, I knew it would be no good, if I came and asked you--you wouldn"t have let me.
So I--well, I just did it!"
Ewen Hooper rose from his table in great distress of mind.
"But, my dear Connie--you are my ward--and I am your guardian! How can I let you give me money?"
"It"s my own money," said Connie firmly. "You know it is. Father wrote to you to say I might spend it now, as I liked--all there was, except the capital of my two thousand a year, which I mayn"t spend--till I am twenty-five. This has nothing to do with that. I"m quite free--and so are you. Do you think"--she drew herself up indignantly--"that you"re going to make me happy--by turning me out, and all--all of you going to rack and ruin--when I"ve got that silly money lying in the bank? I won"t have it! I don"t want to go and live in the Cowley Road! I won"t go and live in the Cowley Road! You promised father and mother to look after me, Uncle Ewen, and it isn"t looking after me--"
"You can"t reproach me on that score as much as I do myself!" said Ewen Hooper, with emotion. "There"s something in that I admit--there"s something in that."
He began to pace the room. Presently, pausing beside Connie, he plunged into an agitated and incoherent account of the situation--of the efforts he had made to get even some temporary help--and of the failure of all of them. It was the confession of a weak and defeated man; and as made by a man of his age to a girl of Connie"s, it was extremely painful.
Nora hid her eyes again, and Connie got paler and paler.
At last she went up to him, holding out again appealing hands.
"Please don"t tell me any more! It"s all right. I just love you, Uncle Ewen--and--and Nora! I want to help! It makes me happy. Oh, why won"t you let me!"
He wavered.
"You dear child!" There was a silence. Then he resumed--as though feeling his way--
"It occurs to me that I might consult Sorell. If he thought it right--if we could protect you from loss--!"
Connie sprang at him and kissed him in delight.
"Of course!--that"ll do splendidly! Mr. Sorell will see, at once, it"s the right thing for me, and my happiness. I can"t be turned out--I really can"t! So it"s settled. Yes--it"s settled!--or it will be directly--and n.o.body need bother any more--need they? But--there"s one condition."
Ewen Hooper looked at her in silence.
"That you--you and Nora--go to Borne this Christmas time, this very Christmas, Uncle Ewen! I think I put in enough--and I can give you such a lot of letters!"
She laughed joyously, though she was very near crying.
"I have never been able to go to Home--Or Athens--never!" he said, in a low voice, as he sat down again at his table. All the thwarted hopes, all the sordid cares of years were in the quiet words.
"Well, now you"re going!" said Connie shyly. "Oh, that would be ripping!
You"ll promise me that--you must, please!"
Silence again. She approached Nora, timidly.
"Nora!"
Nora rose. Her face was stained with tears.
"It"s all wrong," she said heavily--"it"s all wrong. But--I give in.
What I said was a lie. There is nothing else in the world that we could possibly do."
And she rushed out of the room without another word. Connie looked wistfully after her. Nora"s pain in receiving had stirred in her the shame-faced distress in giving that lives in generous souls. "Why should I have more than they?"
She stole out after Nora. Ewen Hooper was left staring at the letter from his bankers, and trying to collect his thoughts. Connie"s voice was still in his ears. It had all the sweetness of his dead sister"s.
Connie was reading in her room before dinner. She had shut herself up there, feeling rather battered by the emotions of the afternoon, when she heard a knock that she knew was Nora"s.
"Come in!"
Nora appeared. She had had her storm of weeping in private and got over it. She was now quite composed, but the depression, the humiliation even, expressed in her whole bearing dismayed Connie afresh.
Nora took a seat on the other side of the fire. Connie eyed her uneasily.
"Are you ever going to forgive me, Nora?" she said, at last.
Nora shrugged her shoulders.
"You couldn"t help it. I see that."
"Thank you," said Connie meekly.
"But what I can"t forgive is that you never said a word--"
"To you? That you might undo it all? Nora, you really are an absurd person!" Connie sprang up, and came to kneel by the fire, so that she might attack her cousin at close quarters. "We"re told it"s "more blessed to give than to receive." Not when you"re on the premises, Nora!
I really don"t think you need make me feel such an outcast! I say--how many nights have you been awake lately?"
Nora"s lip quivered a little.
"That doesn"t matter," she said shortly.
"Yes, but it does matter! You promised to be my friend--and--you have been treating me abominably!" said Connie, with flashing eyes.
Nora feebly defended herself, but was soon reduced to accept a pair of arms thrown round her, and a soft shoulder on which to rest an aching head.
"I"m no good," she said desparingly. "I give up--everything."