“I know that; it's her lie—I never meant it was yours. No, no, it's Missy's lie to choke me off. But it shan't! No, by Heaven, and it shouldn't if it were the living truth!”
There was no more to be said. The man knew that, and he relit the pipe, which he had scarcely tasted, without looking at the sister whom he had silenced. Presently he said in a perfectly passionless voice, coming back from the unspeakable to a point which it was possible to discuss:
“About those things of hers—all her clothes. Did you say that she wanted us to keep them? And if so, why?”
“Because,” said Arabella with some reluctance, “they were bought with money which—as she said herself—she had obtained from father on false pretences.”
It may have been because he was now quite calm outwardly, but at this the man winced more visibly than at what had come out before.
“From father,” he repeated at length; “he couldn't let her have much, anyway!”
“He let her have twenty pounds.”
“Never; the bank wouldn't let him have it.”
“The bank didn't; he got it on his watch.”
“On the watch that's—mending?”