Then they were silent for a moment, each occupied with their own thoughts, and Lord Arranmore, pale and spare, taller than most men there, notwithstanding a recently-acquired stoop, came wearily over to them.
"Dear me," he remarked, "what gloomy faces—and I expected to see Brooks at least radiant. Am I intruding?"
"Don't be absurd, Arranmore," she said kindly. "Why don't you bring up that chair and sit down? You look tired."
He laughed—a little hardly.
"I have been tired so long," he said, "that it has become a habit. Brooks, will you think me guilty of an impertinence, I wonder? I have intruded upon your concerns."
Brooks looked up with his eyes full of questioning. "That fellow Lavilette," Arranmore continued, seemed worried about your anonymous subscription. I was in an evil temper yesterday afternoon, and Verity amused me. So I wrote and confounded the fellow by explaining that it was I who sent the money—the thousand pounds you had."
"You?" Lady Caroom exclaimed, breathlessly.
"You sent me that thousand pounds?" Brooks cried.
They exchanged rapid glances: A spot of colour burned in Lady Caroom's cheeks. She felt her heart quicken, an unspoken prayer upon her lips.
Brooks, too, was agitated.