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"For business purposes," he said gently, as if he were speaking to a child, "he calls himself Ralph Scammel! I know he would not object to your being told, otherwise I should certainly not have mentioned it, I " He broke off. Mrs. Ledley had risen to her feet. She was as white as death, and her eyes were like fire as she took a step forward and leaned heavily against the paper-strewn table.
He's going to buy you a house in the country and send the twins to school. He's given me ever so much money already look!" With shaking hands she dragged the money from her frock and put it into her mother's lap. "You can have it all all!" she went on eagerly. "It's for you that I wanted it. Not for myself. Oh, mother, why don't you speak? Why don't you say something?" Mrs. Ledley moved suddenly.
"All this may or may not be true," he said smoothly; "but at any rate no fault can be attached to this child here." He laid a kind hand on Faith's arm. "And if you will forgive my saying so, Mrs. Ledley, it is very cruel to her to speak in this way." Mrs. Ledley turned and faced him proudly across the table.
"I am sure," he went on pleasantly, "that Mr. Forrester would be only too pleased for me to answer any questions you may care to ask. He told me if the occasion arose I was to be perfectly frank especially in regard to his financial affairs, and...." Mrs. Ledley interrupted hurriedly. "It isn't the money I'm thinking of at all.
Ledley said, slowly: "I only wondered " This day seemed interminable. Faith did her work slowly and badly. She knew that Miss Dell had real cause for her frequent complaints. She was thankful when at last it was time to go. She snatched up her hat and was first out of the factory; she reached the end of the road hot and breathless with her haste. The Beggar Man was not there.
I wanted you to be rich I wanted them to go to a good school and he promised and I knew he was rich!..." Mrs. Ledley clenched her hand. "I would rather die than take a penny of his money," she said passionately. "Money made dishonestly from the ruin of other men's lives." Mr. Shawyer made another attempt.
When would she see him again? The future loomed before her like a thick shadow, without one ray of sunshine. She wished wildly that she had gone with him at the last moment when he had asked her to. She had never felt so lonely in her life. It seemed a long time before Mrs. Ledley came downstairs again. She came into the room where Faith sat, and looked at her with hard eyes.
It was terrible to have nobody in whom she could confide, terrible to have to keep all these wonderful secrets locked up in her own heart. Last night she had almost told her mother. Mrs. Ledley had looked at her again and again in a puzzled sort of manner, and once she had asked, hesitatingly: "Is anything the matter, Faith, dear?" Faith had laughed. "No; what could be the matter?" and Mrs.
"They were always good at home," Faith said, passionately, forgetting how many times a day they had quarrelled and slapped one another, and screamed and cried and nearly worried poor Mrs. Ledley to death. But time had lent a glamour of glory to most things now, and Faith could never think of her life at home without a dreary feeling of heart-sickness.
I think at the last it worried him considerably that he had not seen you before he left and been able to explain things. The marriage is perfectly in order, but you can go to the registrar yourself if you would prefer to do so...." Mrs. Ledley broke in tremblingly. "It all seems so extraordinary. Mr.
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