The other old man looked uneasy, as though some touch of nature smote him for the moment.
“You don't think”—here he crept backward, shambling and cowardly—“you don't think I had any hand in causing this—this very melancholy occurrence.”
“You?” There was undisguised scorn in Agatha's lip. As if any Mr. Grimes could do harm to a Harper! “Nothing of the kind—pray do not disquiet your conscience unnecessarily.”
“But I did bring him unpleasant news, for which I'm rather sorry now. I had much better have told his son. When shall I be likely to see my friend Nathanael?”
His friend Nathanael! Agatha could have crushed him and stamped upon him, had he been worth it.
“Mr. Locke Harper,” she said, trying hard to keep her temper—“Mr. Locke Harper will be at home to-morrow night. You can then make to him any communications you please. At the present, the greatest benefit you can confer on this sad house is to absent yourself from it.”
“'Pon my life, Mrs. Harper, you might waste a little more breath on me, lest I might think it worth while to spend a little too much breath on you and yours. Do you know what claim I have upon your family?”
“That of being Major Harper's lawyer, I believe, and possibly mine before my marriage. It is not likely that my husband has continued to use your services afterwards.”
Agatha said this sharply, for she was annoyed to feel herself in such total darkness regarding her husband's affairs. For a moment she felt half alarmed at the expression, “My friend Nathanael.” Could they be allied, he and this disagreeable man? Could Grimes have acquired any power over him, that he was smiling in such a sinister, mysterious way?
“My services? Really, Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out of nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left”—