"What does Miss Kenyon say?" asked Francis, with sudden sharpness. For it occurred to him that if that match were broken off he would not get his two thousand pounds on Oliver's wedding-day.
"She doesn't seem to notice much. Once or twice lately I've seen her look at them in a thoughtful, puzzled kind of way, as if something had set her thinking. She looks at Miss Lesley as if she could not quite make her out—though the two have been friends ever since Miss Lesley came home from school."
"And the girl herself?" said Francis, with considerable and increasing interest. "What does she do?"
"She looks troubled and puzzled, but I don't think she understands. She's as innocent as a baby," said Mrs. Trent, with compassion in her tone.
"I wonder what he's doing it for," soliloquized Francis. "He can't marry her."
Mary Trent paused for a moment in her housewifely occupations. "Why can he not?"
"Because——well, I may as well tell you as not I've never mentioned it—I don't know why exactly—but I'll tell you now, Mary. A few weeks ago, when we were so down on our luck, you know—just before you began to work again—I met Oliver in Russell Square, and told him what I wanted and what I thought of him. I brought him to terms, I can tell you! He had just got himself engaged to Miss Kenyon; and she has twenty thousand pounds besides her profession; and he promised me two thousand down on his wedding-day. What do you say to that? And within six months, too! And if he doesn't keep his word, I shall not hold my tongue about the one or two little secrets of his that I possess—do you see?"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trent, slowly, "he thinks he could manage to pay you the money even if he married Miss Brooke? So long as you get the two thousand, I suppose you don't mind which girl it is?"
"Not a bit," answered her husband frankly. "All I want is the money. Then we'll go off to America, old girl, and have the farm you talk about. But Brooke's daughter won't have two thousand pounds, so if he marries her instead of Miss Kenyon, he'll have to look out."
Mrs. Trent had finished her work by this time. As she stood by the table drying her hands there was a look of fixed determination on her features which Francis recognized with some uneasiness.