“It was an accident,” he said. “It is for me alone to settle this affair.”
Grace did not move, but her eyes were now fixed upon Sydney.
“I owe you nothing in the shape of money,” said Sydney to Mr. Pelham. “I will trouble you for my bits of paper.”
Mr. Pelham, with trembling fingers, opened his pocket-book. His agitation was very great, but I have never been able to decide whether it was by accident or design that he pulled out, with Sydney’s I O U’s, a number of letters and papers, and with them a photograph. It was a photograph of Grace. We all saw it, and I was not the only one who waited apprehensively for Sydney’s next move.
He took up the picture; there was writing on the back, which he read. There was breathless silence in the room. For a moment Sydney’s eyes rested upon Grace. She smiled wistfully, as a child might smile who had been detected in a trifling fault. Sydney did not respond to her smile. He handed the picture back to Mr. Pelham without a word.
Receiving his I O U’s he burnt them, one by one, in the flame of a candle, calling out the sums, which two or three of the men pencilled down.
“Is that all?” he demanded of Mr. Pelham, as the discomfited gambler paused.
“That is all,” replied Mr. Pelham.
“Your sight or your memory is short,” said Sydney. “I am not accounted an expert at figures, but you will find an I O U for three thousand, which you have overlooked. Ah! I was right, I see. You are but a clumsy scoundrel after all.”
“You shall answer to me for this,” said Mr. Pelham, with an attempt at bravado.