"Cradell has never gone off with her in that way. He may be a fool—"
"Oh, he is, you know. I've never seen such a fool about a woman as he has been."
"But he wouldn't be a party to stealing a lot of trumpery trinkets, or taking her husband's money. Indeed, I don't think he has anything to do with it." Then Eames thought over the circumstances of the day, and remembered that he had certainly not seen Cradell since the morning. It was that public servant's practice to saunter into Eames's room in the middle of the day, and there consume bread and cheese and beer,—in spite of an assertion which Johnny had once made as to crumbs of biscuit bathed in ink. But on this special day he had not done so. "I can't think he has been such a fool as that," said Johnny.
"But he has," said Amelia. "It's dinner-time now, and where is he? Had he any money left, Johnny?"
So interrogated, Eames disclosed a secret confided to him by his friend which no other circumstances would have succeeded in dragging from his breast.
"She borrowed twelve pounds from him about a fortnight since, immediately after quarter-day. And she owed him money, too, before that."
"Oh, what a soft!" exclaimed Amelia; "and he hasn't paid mother a shilling for the last two months!"
"It was his money, perhaps, that Mrs. Roper got from Lupex the day before yesterday. If so, it comes to the same thing as far as she is concerned, you know."
"And what are we to do now?" said Amelia, as she went before her lover upstairs. "Oh, John, what will become of me if ever you serve me in that way? What should I do if you were to go off with another lady?"
"Lupex hasn't gone off," said Eames, who hardly knew what to say when the matter was brought before him with so closely personal a reference.