"I shall, however." She almost laughs as she steps back from him, and up to Margaret. There is an air about her as though she had snapped her pretty fingers in his face. "Now you must help me to gain my living," cries she gaily. "'A child of the people' (I quote your mother again)," smiling at Rylton, "I will go back to the people."
"It is not quite so bad as that," says Margaret, who has been studying the fatal letter with a view of tearing some good out of it. "It seems that when these speculations that your uncle made with your money all failed—and these failures have been going on for years—that still he tried to keep up his credit with you by—by sacrificing all his own money, and——"
"Poor old Uncle George," says the girl softly. For the first time she seems sorry for the misfortune that has fallen on her house. "Perhaps I can go to him, and help him. I dare say, now he is down in the world, he might be a little kinder to me."
"Impossible, Tita. He has gone abroad," says Margaret, who, as she tells herself miserably, is developing into a determined liar!
Uncle George, so runs the letter, has committed suicide. Truly he has gone abroad with a vengeance, and no man knoweth whither.
Tita sighs. It is, to tell truth, a sigh of relief. Uncle George had not been palatable to her.
"Well, I can earn something."
"You need not that," says Margaret. "It seems there is from two to three hundred a year left to you that cannot be disputed. It should be sufficient to——"
"I can live on half that!" cries Tita eagerly.
"You shall live with me," says Rylton, breaking in with cold anger.
"You are my wife. You shall not leave me."