He eyed it curiously round; and, lastly, with his most acute look he eyed herself, as if he wished to find out something from her manner, before going into further explanations.
But she stood before him a little uneasy, and yet not very much so.
The utmost she expected was some quarrel with her sister Selina;
perhaps the breaking off of the match, which would not have broken
Hilary's heart at all events.
"So you have really no idea what I'm come about!"
"Not the slightest."
"Well!" said Peter Ascott. "I hardly thought it; but when one has been taken in as I have been, and this isn't the first time by your family—"
"Mr. Ascott! will you explain yourself?"
"I will, ma'am. It's a very unpleasant business I come about; any other gentleman but me would have come with a police officer at his back. Look here, Miss Hilary Leaf—did you ever set eyes on this before?"
He took out his check book, turned deliberately over the small memorandum halves of the page, till he came to one in particular, then hunted in his pocket book for something.
"My banker sent in to-day my canceled checks, which I don't usually go over oftener than three months; he knew that, the scamp."
Hilary looked up.