What wonder? His father not ten hours dead!—and already to have found out that father in a course of action which must cover his name with dishonour.
Trust betrayed! Trust money appropriated! A heavier blow could scarcely have fallen upon the children of Albert Browning, brought up to regard him with loving reverence.
Fulvia could not look on unmoved. Tears rushed to her eyes. She forgot the uncertainty of her own position, forgot how words and acts might be misconstrued. They were boy and girl again—brother and sister—he as he used to be, a little the younger in character, turning to her for guidance, and she—"Nigel, I can't bear you to feel it so!" she cried with a sob, coming to his side, and then she sat down, leaning towards him. "What does the money matter to me, except that I wanted to help you all? It is worse for you, of course—worse to know—But he did not mean it! He never meant it! It has been some accident—something he could not help. We will never think a hard thought of him, or hear a hard word said. Somebody else was to blame; not dear padre—always so good and kind to me. Only don't mind—don't distress yourself—please don't think anything of it."
The nobility of the girl could not but strike home to Nigel, not only with a sense of admiration, but with a rush of new pain. It made his position with respect to her only the more difficult. Yet, trying to rally, he said—
"All that we can do—" and there was a break. "Everything that we have is yours, until—"
"Nonsense! How can you talk such nonsense?" cried Fulvia. "Everything I ever had is yours—madre's, I mean!" And she blushed vividly; but the blush passed as she went on—"After all, how can we know? How can we be sure? It is so soon. Things may not be so bad. You cannot have looked into matters fully yet. Don't you think there may be some mistake?"
He lifted his face and looked straight at Fulvia.
"No; there was a letter for me."
"A letter—from—"
"My father."