At that moment Maurice entered, and his grandmother, taking the letter from Bertha, and placing it in his hand, accosted him with no little asperity of tone.
"What is the meaning of this?"
He glanced over the letter hurriedly and replied, "It is of you that I should ask that question, my grandmother, and I must also ask how I am to thank you for making me so deeply your debtor, and at a moment when, for the first time in my life, my honor was implicated!"
"Your honor implicated? Your honor? The honor of a de Gramont? What do you mean?"
"Had you not, in some inexplicable manner, become aware of my position, and paid those ten thousand dollars with such liberality and promptitude, I should have been—I cannot bear the thought! The very remembrance of the position from which I have been extricated cuts me to the soul."
"Are you mad, Maurice?" demanded the countess. "I pay ten thousand dollars for you? What do I know about money?"
"Then the money was not sent to Mr. Emerson by you?" inquired Maurice, more bewildered than ever.
"Mr. Emerson? Who is Mr. Emerson? I never heard of the person."
Maurice turned to Bertha. The idea at once suggested itself that she had used her aunt's name to conceal her own generosity.