Maria's divination in the matter was clearly right. Agnes did blame her. She was sure Harry would not have written the note he did write unless he had received previous encouragement. "There must have been meetings in the Semples's garden before," she mused. "Oh, there must have been, or else Harry's note was inexcusable, it was impertinence, it was vulgarity. All the same, she need not have said these words to me."
So the reconciliation was only a truce; the heart-wound in both girls was unhealed; and if it were healed would not the scar remain forever?
Three or four days after this unsatisfactory meeting Neil came home in the afternoon just as the family were sitting down to the tea-table. "It is cruelly cold, mother," he said. "I will be grateful for a cup. I am shivering at my very heart." Then he gave his father a business-like paper, saying, "I found it at my office this morning, sir."
"What is it Neil? What is it? More trouble?"
"No, sir. It is a deed making over to you the property in which Mr. Bradley has his shop and workrooms. He says in a letter to me that 'he feels this deed to be your right and his duty.' You are to hold the property as security until he pays you three hundred pounds with interest; and if you are not paid within three years you are to sell the property and satisfy yourself."
"You can give Mr. Bradley his deed back again, my lad. I can pay my own fines; or if I can't, I can go to prison. I'll not be indebted to him."
"You mistake, sir. This is a moral obligation, and quite as binding as a legal one to Mr. Bradley."
"Take the paper, Alexander," said Madame, "and be thankfu' to save so much out o' the wreck o' things. We havena the means nor the right, these days, to fling awa' siller in order to flatter our pride. In my opinion, it was as little as Bradley could do."
"I went at once to his shop to see him," continued Neil, "but he was not there. In the afternoon I called again, and found he had been absent all day. Fearing he was sick, I stopped at his house on my way home. A strange woman opened the door. She said Mr. Bradley and his daughter had gone away."
"Gone away!" cried Maria. "Where have they gone? Agnes said nothing to me about going away."