"Don't ask questions. There's the money; take it. You don't think I
stole it, do you?"
"Stole it, Hendon dear? No, of course. How can you talk so?"
"Then, why don't you take it?"
"Because, as your sister, I think I have a right to know whence it
comes."
"And, as your brother, seeing how we live here, in everybody's debt, I
don't think you need be so jolly particular."
"However poor we are, Hendon, we need not lose our self-respect."
"Self-respect! How is a man to have self-respect, without a penny in
his pocket?"
"You just showed me pounds."
"Yes, now."
"How did you come by it, Hendon?"
"Don't ask," he cried impatiently. "Take it, and pay that poor girl
some wages on account, and give young Bob a tightener. Don't be so
squeamish, Rich."
"I will not take the money. You deceived me once before."
"Well, if I'd told you I won it at pool you wouldn't have taken it."
"No," said Rich firmly, "I would sooner have lived on dry bread. This
money, then, is part of some gambling transaction?"
"It isn't."
"Then how did you come by it?"
"Well, then, if you will have it, Poynter lent it to me."
"Oh, Hendon, Hendon, has it come to this?" cried Richmond piteously.
"Yes, it has. What is a fellow to do? Home's wretched; one never has a
shilling. The guvnor's mad over his essence, as he calls it, and I
believe, if he saw us starve, he would smile and sigh."
"No, no. He is so intent upon his discovery, that he does not realise
our position."
"His discovery! Bah! Lunacy! There isn't a fellow at Guy's who
wouldn't laugh at me if I told him what the guvnor does. Rich, old
girl, I'm sick of it! It was madness for me to go through all this
training, when I might have been earning money as porter or a clerk.
Everything has been swallowed up in the fees. Why, if Jem Poynter
hadn't come forward like a man, and paid the last--"
"What?"
"Well, what are you shouting at?"
"Did Mr Poynter pay your last fees at Guy's?"
"Of course he did. Do you suppose the money was caught at the bottom of
a spout after a shower?"
"Hendon, dear Hendon!"
"There, it's no use to be so squeamish. If those last hadn't been paid,
it would have been like throwing away all that had been paid before."
"I did not know of this--I did not know of this!"
"Don't, don't, dear! I couldn't help it. I used to feel as bad as you
do; but this cursed poverty hardens a man. I fought against it; but
Poynter was always after me, tempting me, standing dinners when I was as
hungry as a hound; giving me wine and cigars. He has almost forced
money on me lots of times; and at--at other times--when I've had a few
glasses--I haven't refused it. It's all Janet's fault."
"Hendon!"
"Well, so it is!" cried the young fellow passionately. "If she hadn't
thrown me over as she did--"
"To save you from additional poverty."
"No, it didn't; it made me desperate, and ready to drink when a chap
like Poynter was jolly, and forced champagne on me. I was as proud as
you are once, but my pride's about all gone!"
"Hush! I will not hear you speak like that, Hendon, my own darling
brother! For Janet's sake--"
"She's nothing to me now. I was thrown over for some other fellow."
"How dare you, sir! You know it is not true! Dear Janet! Working
daily like a slave, and offering me her hard earnings when we were so
pressed."
"Did she--did she?" cried Hendon excitedly, and with his pale face
flushing up.
"There," cried Richmond half-laughingly, half-scornfully, "confess, sir,
that a lying spirit was on your lips. Say you believe that of Janet and
that you do not still love her, if you dare!"
Hendon Chartley let his head fall into his hands, and bent down, with
his shoulders heaving with the emotion he could not conceal, while his
sister bent over him and laid her hand upon his head.
He started up at her touch, seized and kissed her hand, and then, going
to the side of the room, he laid his arm against the panel and his brow
upon it, to stand talking there.
"I can't help it, Rich dear," he groaned; "I feel like a brute beast
sometimes, and as if I can never look her in the face again. I've
drunk; I've gone wild in a kind of despair; and Poynter seems to have
been always by me to egg me on, and get me under his thumb."
"My own brother!"
"Don't touch me, dear. I can't stop here. I'll do as Mark Heath did,
and if Janet'll wait, perhaps some day I may come back to her a better
man, and she may forgive me."
There was a pause.
"I don't believe anything of her but what is good and true; God bless
her for a little darling--Why, Rich!"
He turned sharply, for a low moan had escaped his sister, and he found
that she had sunk into a chair, and was sobbing bitterly, with her face
in her hands.
"Rich darling, I did not mean it. What have I said?"
"Nothing, nothing, dear; only you--you must not leave me."
"But Mark Heath--Ah! what a fool I am!" he cried, catching his sister in
his arms. "I did not think what I was saying; and, Rich dear, hold up,
I don't believe the dear old boy is dead."
"Hush, Hendon dear," said Richmond, mastering her emotion; "I want--I
want to talk to you about Mr Poynter."
"Yes, all right. Sit down, dear, and I won't be such a fool."
"You must not leave me."
"I won't. I'll stop and fight it out like a man. And as for James
Poynter, I wish I hadn't let him pay those rates."
"What?"
"I didn't like to tell you, but I let out to him about the gas and water
and the rest of it, and next day he gave me all the receipts. It was
one night after I'd dined with him at his club, and I was a bit primed.
I thought it was very noble of him then, but when I saw it all I did
nothing but curse and swear. It was nearly the death of a patient at
Guy's, for I forget what I was about. Hang it, Rich dear! don't look so
white as that."
"I--I was wondering why we had not been troubled more," she stammered;
and then, with her face flushing, she turned fiercely upon her brother.
"Hendon," she cried, "do you know what this means?"
There was utter silence, and Hendon Chartley turned his face away.
"I say, do you know what this means? Hendon, speak?"
"Yes."
It was slowly and unwillingly said.
"And you have encouraged this man to make advances to the woman your
best friend--almost your brother--loved?"
"Oh, Rich!"
"Speak."
"No, no! I never encouraged him. I fought against it, and it has made
me half mad when the great vulgar boor has sat talking about you, and
drinking your health and praising you. Rich, I tell you I've felt
sometimes as if I could smash the champagne bottle over his thick skull
for even daring to think about you."
"And yet you have let him do all this!" cried Richmond, with her eyes
flashing. "Hendon--brother, for the sake of this man's money and the
comforts it would bring, do you wish to see me his wife?"
"Damn it, no! I'd sooner see you dead!" cried the young man
passionately. "Say the word, old girl, and I'll fight for you as a
brother should. I'll half-starve myself but what I'll get on, and pay
that thick-skinned City elephant every penny I've had."
"And some day Janet shall put her arms round your neck, and tell you
that you are the best and truest boy that ever lived."
"Ah! some day," said Hendon sadly.
"Yes, some day," cried Rich, clasping him in her arms. "Hendon dear,
you've made me strong where I felt very, very weak, and now we can join
hands and fight the enemy to the very last."
"When old Mark shall come back."
"Hush!"
"No, I'll not hush! When dear old Mark shall come back, and all these
troubles be like a dream."
Richmond looked up with a sad smile in her brother's face, and kissed
him once again.
"And Janet--" he said hoarsely, after he had returned her caress.
"Is acting as a true woman should. Take her as a pattern, dear, and
show some self-denial."
"Why not take you, Rich?" he said kindly as he gazed in the sweet
careworn face before him. "There, I won't ask you to have the money.
I'm off; if I stop here longer I shall be acting like a girl. As for
Poynter, if he comes and pesters you--"
"Mr Poynter will not come," said Richmond, drawing herself up proudly.
"He has acted like a coward to us both."
"One moment, Rich," said Hendon eagerly: "do you think--the governor--"
"Has taken money from him? No."
"Thank God!"
"My father, whatever his weakness, is a true gentleman at heart. He
would not do this thing."
Hendon advanced a step to take his sister in his arms, but in his eyes
then she wore so much the aspect of an indignant queen that he raised
her thin white hand to his lips instead, and hurried from the house.