A troop of conclusions were rushing at Lydia, all demanding to be fitted in.
"But you've come back here," she said, incredulous that things as they actually were could supplement the foolish tale Madame Beattie might have stolen out of a silly book. "You think Esther did such a thing as that, and yet you're here with her in this house."
"That's why I'm here," said Madame Beattie patiently. "Jeff's back again, and the necklace hasn't been fully paid for. I've kept my word to him. I haven't exposed his wife, and yet he hasn't recognised my not doing it."
The vision of Jeffrey fleeing before the lash of this implacable taskmaster was appalling to Lydia.
"But he can't pay you," said she. "He's no money. Not even to settle with his creditors."
"That's it," said Madame Beattie. "He's got to make it. And I'm his first creditor. I must be paid first."
"You haven't told him so?" said Lydia, in a manner of fending her off.
"It isn't time. He hasn't recovered his nerve. But he will, digging in that absurd garden."
"And when you think he has, you'll tell him?"
"Why, of course." Madame Beattie reached for her book and smoothed the pages open with a beautiful hand. "It'll do him good, too. Bring him out of thinking he's a man of destiny, or whatever it is he thinks. You tell him. I daresay you've got some influence with him. That's why I've gone into it with you."