“You have done yourself no good by it,” retorted he angrily. “You see Lord Clanfield did not even answer your letter.”
Audrey bit her lip.
“Well, I did my duty at any rate. Now I’m going away from this hateful place, and the men who come here will know, once for all, that I have nothing to do with keeping it up.”
“You have kept it up for two months,” said he drily.
The hot blood rushed into Audrey’s face.
“I certainly did not keep up the billiard-room, or allow the play that went on there,” she said sharply. “That can be proved. I had the keys yesterday for the first time.”
“Well, it’s easy to say that. Indeed, I should advise you to say it,” said Mr. Candover, with a sudden change to provoking coolness. “But will you get people to believe it? I think the odds are against you.”
A cold chill crept along Audrey’s limbs. Was this true? It was, she felt, only too likely to prove so. If she were to assert that she knew nothing of the existence of the room where the late card-playing went on, the servants, who, as she guessed, were all engaged in the nefarious business carried on there, would be ready to swear that she did know.
She kept silence.
“Of course, in the circumstances, I applaud your resolution to leave the place,” went on Mr. Candover; “though, as you have only ten days longer of your tenancy, to go now looks rather as though you were disgusted at being found out.”