"I suppose the money is in that bag?" he went on, going to the writing-table and lifting it. "You want me to take care of it for you, as your contribution to our honeymoon?" He spoke sneeringly.
"Yes," she said, watching him as he seated himself before the table. Then she went to him, took up the bag, and shook out six common leather purses she had bought at the bazaar in a great emporium that morning, and filled during the afternoon. Purses and gold alike were untraceable. "There are a hundred and twenty-five sovereigns. Count them, won't you?"
"No! I will trust you," he said, with a sinister smile. "I may be a fool for my pains, but I trust you."
She sat as if spellbound, watching him take a small bunch of keys from his pocket and open a worn old travelling desk on the table. It was his own, that desk, she mechanically thought, as she noted the half obliterated letters "V.M." on the flap, and wondered what was passing within his mind to cause that dark frown, that cruel look in his black eyes, as he slowly packed in the purses one by one.
"It is a beggarly sum that you have brought me, do you know?" he said, turning to her with sudden fierceness--and his lips were drawn back, his teeth gleamed white under his moustache. "I am too good to you! I have that here in this desk with which I could coin thousands to-morrow if I pleased. I have only to show your letters, the certificate of marriage, to your damnably miserly old uncle, and he would at once make terms. And you--you would precious soon find me as much money as I wanted if I threatened you to take the lot to your lover, Lord Vansittart!"
If a bomb had suddenly fallen upon the table before her, Joan could hardly have had a greater shock. She staggered back and fell limply into a chair, staring at him. Her lips opened to speak, but no sound came. She was livid as a corpse.
He was frightened. If she should choose to have a prolonged faint--such as he had known some women to have--and Vera returned before he could get her away!
"Don't make a scene here, d'ye hear?" he savagely cried--and he went to the cupboard, and after a clinking of glass, he brought out a bottle half full of brandy, and two tumblers, and poured some into each.
"Take some of that, it'll pull you together," he said, not unkindly, as he held the glass to her lips. But she kept them firmly closed, and faintly shook her head.
"No! Water!" she whispered, hoarsely. "Water!"