“You mean the money?”
“Precisely,” she continued. “I trust you, why I do not know—I suppose because I am something of a physiognomist—with twelve thousand pounds of my hard-earned savings. You refuse to trust me with even a few simple particulars about the life of my own sister. Come, I don't think that things are quite as they should be between us.”
“Do you know where I first met your sister?” Tavernake asked.
She shook her head pettishly.
“How should I? You told me nothing.”
“She was staying in a boarding-house where I lived,” Tavernake went on. “I think I told you that but nothing else. It was a cheap boarding-house but she had not enough money to pay for her meals. She was tired of life. She was in a desperate state altogether.”
“Are you trying to tell me, or rather trying not to tell me, that Beatrice was mad enough to think of committing suicide?” Elizabeth inquired.
“She was in the frame of mind when such a step was possible,” he answered, gravely. “You remember that night when I first saw you in the chemist's shop across the street? She had been very ill that evening, very ill indeed. You could see for yourself the effect meeting you had upon her.”
Elizabeth nodded, and crumbled a little piece of roll between her fingers. Then she leaned over the table towards Tavernake.
“She seemed terrified, didn't she? She hurried you away—she seemed afraid.”