"You--er--cashed that cheque?"

"Yes."

Alex felt as though she were being put to the torture of the Inquisition, but was utterly unable to do more than reply in monosyllables to Cedric's level, judicial questions.

"May I ask to what purpose you applied the money?"

"Cedric, it's not fair!" broke from Alex. "I've written and told you what I did--I needed money, and I--I thought you wouldn't mind. I used it for myself--and I meant to write and tell you--"

"You thought I wouldn't mind!" repeated Cedric in tones of stupefaction.

"You said you would advance me money--I knew you could write another cheque for the servants' wages. I--I didn't think of your minding."

"Mind!" said Cedric again, with reiteration worthy of his nursery days.

"My dear girl, you don't suppose it's the money I mind, do you?"

"No, no--I ought to have asked you first--but I didn't think--it seemed a natural thing to do--"

"Good Lord, Alex!" cried Cedric, more moved than she had ever seen him.

"Do you understand what you're saying? A natural thing to do to _embezzle money_?"

Tears of terror and of utter bewilderment seized on Alex' enfeebled powers, and deprived her of utterance.

Cedric began to pace the library, speaking rapidly and without looking at her.

"If you'd only written and told me what you'd done at once--though Heaven knows that would have been bad enough but to do a thing like that and then let it rest! Didn't you know that it _must_ be found out sooner or later?"

He cast a fleeting glance at Alex, who sat with the tears pouring down her quivering face, but she said nothing. It was of no use to explain to Cedric that she had never thought of not being found out. She had meant no concealment. She had thought her action so simple a one that it had hardly needed explanation or justification. It had merely been not worth while to write.

Cedric's voice went on, gradually gaining in power as the agitation that had shaken him subsided under his own fluency.

"You know that it's a prosecutable offence, Alex? Of course, there's no question of such a thing, but to trade on that certainty--"

Alex made an inarticulate sound.

"Violet says of course you didn't know what you were doing. That wretched place--that convent--has played havoc with you altogether. When I think of those people--!" Cedric's face darkened. "But hang it, Alex, you were brought up like the rest of us. And on a question of honour--think of father!"

Alex had stopped crying. She was about to make her last stand, with the last strength that in her lay.

"Cedric--listen to me. You must! You don't understand. I didn't look at it from your point of view--I didn't see it like that. There's something wrong with me--there must be--but it didn't seem to me to matter. I know you won't believe me--but I thought the money was quite a little, unimportant thing, and that you'd understand, and say I'd done right to take it for granted that I might have it."

"But it's _not_ the money!" groaned Cedric. "Though what on earth you wanted it for, when you had no expenses and your allowance just paid in--But that's not the point. Can't you see, Alex? It's not this wretched cheque in itself; it's the principle of the thing."

Alex gazed at him quite hopelessly. The flickering spark of spirit died out and left her soul in darkness.

Cedric faced her.

"I couldn't believe that your letter really meant what it seemed to mean," he said slowly; "but if it does--as on your own showing it does--then I understand your leaving us, needless to say. Where are you living--what is this place, Malden Road?"

Characteristically, he drew out her letter, and referred to the address carefully.

"Where is Malden Road?"

"In Hampstead--near Barbara."

"Are you in rooms?"

"Yes."

"How did you find them? Who recommended them?"

She made no answer, and Cedric gazed at her with an expression of half-angry, half-compa.s.sionate perplexity.

"You are ent.i.tled to keep your own counsel, of course, and to make your own arrangements, but I must say, Alex, that the thought of you disturbs me very much. Your whole position is unusual--and your att.i.tude makes it almost impossible to--" He broke off. "Violet begged me--quite unnecessarily, but you know what she is--not to let you feel as though there were any estrangement--to say that whatever arrangement you preferred should be made. Of course, Pamela's marriage will add to your resources--you understand that? She is marrying an extremely wealthy man, and I shall have not the slightest hesitation in allowing her to make over her share of father's money to you as soon as it can be arranged. She wishes it herself."

He paused, as though for some expression of grat.i.tude from Alex, but she made none. Pam had everything, and now she was to have the credit and pleasure of a generosity which would cost her nothing as well. Alex maintained a bitter silence.

"The obvious course is for you to join Barbara, paying your half of expenses, as you will now be enabled to do."

"Barbara doesn't want me."

"It is the natural arrangement," repeated Cedric inflexibly. "And I must add, Alex, that you seem to me to be terribly unfitted to manage your own life in any way. If what you have told me is the case, I can only infer that your moral sense is completely perverted. I couldn't have believed it of one of us--of one of my father's children."

Alex knew that the bed-rock of Cedric's character was reached. She had come to the point where, for Cedric, right and wrong began and ended--honour.

They would never get any nearer to one another now. The fundamental principle which governed life for Cedric was deficient in Alex.

She got up slowly and began to pull on her shabby gloves.

"Will you forgive me, Cedric?" she half sobbed.

"It isn't a question of forgiveness. Of course I will. But if you'd only asked me for that wretched money, Alex! What you did was to embezzle--it neither more nor less. Oh, good Lord!"

He looked at her with fresh despair and then rang the bell.

"You're going to have a taxi," he told her authoritatively. "You're not fit to go any other way. Alex, my dear, I'd give my right hand for this not to have happened--for Heaven's sake come to me if you want anything.

How much shall I give you now?"

He unlocked the writing-table drawer agitatedly. Alex thought to herself hysterically, "He thinks I may _steal_ money, perhaps, from somebody else, if I want it, and _perhaps I should_." And with a sense of degradation that made her feel physically sick, she put into her purse the gold and the pile of silver that he pushed into her hand.

Cedric straightened himself, and taking off his gla.s.ses, wiped them carefully.

"Write to me, Alex, and let me know What you want to do. Barbara will be back soon--you _must_ go to her--at any rate for a time--till after Pamela's wedding. You know that's fixed for December now? And, my dear, for Heaven's sake let's forget this ghastly business. No one on this earth but you and I and Violet need ever know of it."

"No," said Alex.

She looked at him with despair invading her whole being.