By what process Pierce did manage it, was best known to himself. There was certainly no disturbance. A little talking, and Maria thought she heard the sound of something liquid being poured into a gla.s.s near the sideboard, as she stood out of view behind the turning at the back of the hall. Then Pierce and Mrs. Bond issued forth, the best friends imaginable, the latter talking amiably.

Maria came out of her hiding-place, but only to encounter some one who had pushed in at the hall-door as Mrs. Bond left it. A little man in a white neckcloth. He advanced to Mrs. George G.o.dolphin.

"Can I speak a word to you, ma'am, if you please?" he asked, taking off his hat.

She could only answer in the affirmative, and she led the way to the dining-room. She wondered who he was: his face seemed familiar to her.

The first words he spoke told her, and she remembered him as the head a.s.sistant at the linendraper's where she chiefly dealt. He had been sent to press for payment of the account. She could only tell him as she had told Mrs. Bond--that she was unable to pay it.

"Mr. Jones would be so very much obliged to you, ma'am," he civilly urged. "It has been standing now some little time, and he hopes you will stretch a point to pay him. If you could only give me part of it, he would be glad."

"I have not got it to give," said Maria, telling the truth in her unhappiness. She could only be candid: she was unable to fence with them, to use subterfuge, as others might have done. She spoke the truth, and she spoke it meekly. When Mr. George G.o.dolphin came home, she hoped she should pay them, she said. The messenger took the answer, losing none of his respectful manner, and departed.

But all were not so civil; and many found their way to her that day.

Once a thought came across her to send them into the Bank: but she remembered Thomas G.o.dolphin's failing health, and the battle he had to fight on his own account. Besides, these claims were for personalities--debts owed by herself and George. In the afternoon, Pierce came in and said a lady wished to see her.

"Who is it?" asked Maria.

Pierce did not know. She was not a visitor of the house. She gave in her name as Mrs. Harding.

The applicant came in. Maria recognized her, when she threw back her veil, as the wife of Harding, the undertaker. Pierce closed the door, and they were left together.

"I have taken the liberty of calling, Mrs. George G.o.dolphin, to ask if you will not pay our account," began the applicant in a low, confidential tone. "Do pray let us have it, if you can, ma'am!"

Maria was surprised. There was nothing owing that she was aware of.

There could be nothing. "What account are you speaking of?" she asked.

"The account for the interment of the child. Your little one who died last, ma'am."

"But surely that is paid!"

"No, it is not," replied Mrs. Harding. "The other accounts were paid, but that never has been. Mr. George G.o.dolphin has promised it times and again: but he never paid it."

Not paid! The burial of their child! Maria's face flushed. Was it carelessness on George's part, or had he been so long embarra.s.sed for money that to part with it was a trouble to him? Maria could not help thinking that he might have spared some little remnant for just debts, while lavishing so much upon bill-discounters. She could not help feeling another thing--that it was George's place to be meeting and battling with these unhappy claims, rather than hers.

"This must be paid, of course, Mrs. Harding," she said. "I had no idea that it was not paid. When Mr. George G.o.dolphin comes home, I will ask him to see about it instantly."

"Ma'am, can't you pay me _now_?" urged Mrs. Harding. "If it waits till the bankruptcy's declared, it will have to go into it; and they say--they do say that there'll be nothing for anybody. We can't afford to lose it," she added, speaking confidentially. "What with bad debts and long-standing accounts, we are on the eve of a crisis ourselves; though I should not like it to be known. This will help to stave it off, if you will let us have it."

"I wish I could," returned Maria. "I wish I had it to give to you. It ought to have been paid long ago."

"A part of it was money paid out of our pocket," said Mrs. Harding reproachfully. "Mrs. George G.o.dolphin, you don't know the boon it would be to us!"

"I would give it you, indeed I would, if I had it," was all Maria could answer.

She could not say more if Mrs. Harding stopped until night. Mrs. Harding became at last convinced of that truth, and took her departure. Maria sat down with burning eyes; eyes into which the tears would not come.

What with one hint and another, she had grown tolerably conversant with the facts patent to the world. One whisper startled her more than any ether. It concerned Lord Averil's bonds. What was amiss with them? That there was something, and something bad, appeared only too evident. In her terrible state of suspense, of uncertainty, she determined to inquire of Thomas G.o.dolphin.

Writing a few words on a slip of paper, she sent it into the Bank parlour. It was a request that he would see her before he left. Thomas sent back a verbal message: "Very well."

It was growing late in the evening before he came to her. What a day he had had! and he had taken no refreshment; nothing to sustain him. Maria thought of that, and spoke.

"Let me get you something," she said. "Will you take some dinner here, instead of waiting to get to Ashlydyat?"

He shook his head in token of refusal. "It is not much dinner that I shall eat anywhere to-day, Maria. Did you wish to speak to me?"

"I want--to--ask----" she seemed to gasp for breath, and waited a moment for greater calmness. "Thomas," she began again, going close to him, and speaking almost in a whisper, "what is it that is being said about Lord Averil's bonds?"

Thomas G.o.dolphin did not immediately reply. He may have been deliberating whether it would be well to tell her; perhaps whether it _could_ be kept from her. Maria seemed to answer the thought.

"I must inevitably know it," she said, striving not to tremble outwardly as well as inwardly. "Better that I hear it from you than from others."

He thought she was right--the knowledge must inevitably come to her. "It may be better to tell you, Maria," he said. "George used the bonds for his own purposes."

A dread pause. Maria's throat was working. "Then--it must have been he who took them from the strong-room!"

"It was."

The shivering came on palpably now. "What will be the consequences?" she breathed.

"I do not know. I dread to think. Lord Averil may inst.i.tute a prosecution."

Their eyes met. Maria controlled her emotion, with the desperate energy of despair. "A--criminal--prosecution?"

"It is in his power to do it. He has not been near me to-day, and that looks unfavourable."

"Does he know it yet--that it was George?"

"He must know it. In fact, I think it likely, he may have received official notice of it from town. The report has spread from thence--and that is how it has become known in Prior's Ash."

Maria moistened her dry lips, and swallowed down the lump in her throat ere she could speak. "Would it be safe for him to return here?"

"If he does return, it must be at the risk of consequences."

"Thomas!--Thomas!" she gasped, the thought occurring to her with a sort of shock, "is he in hiding, do you think?"

"I think it likely that he is. He gave you no address, it seems: neither has he sent one to me."

She drew back to the wall by the mantel-piece, and leaned against it.

Every hour seemed to bring forth worse and worse. Thomas gazed with compa.s.sion on the haggardness that was seating itself on her sweet face.

She was less able to cope with this misery than he. He laid his hand upon her shoulder, speaking in low tones.

"It is a fiery trial for both of us, Maria: one hard to encounter. G.o.d alone can help us to bear it. Be very sure that He will help!"

He went out, taking his way on foot to Ashlydyat. There was greater grief there, if possible, than at the Bank. The news touching the bonds, unhappily afloat in Prior's Ash, had penetrated an hour ago to Ashlydyat.

Scarcely had he entered the presence of his sisters, when he was told that Lady Sarah Grame wanted him.