Ebner Ford strode forward into the hall, slamming his door shut back of him.
“You tell Mrs. Miggs,” he cried, “she’ll get her money all right. You tell her she’ll get it on the dates I promised her, and not before. You can’t bulldoze me. You ain’t the only lawyer in this here town. I’ve got one as smart as you, and when you come to settle up this matter you’ll find it’ll cost you a damned sight more’n you bargained for. You tell her that. Don’t you dare insinuate I ain’t treated her fairly.”
A strange numbness seized Miss Ann.
“You sold my client stock,” shouted back the lawyer, as he turned down the stairs, “that is worthless; that you knew at the time wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. We’ve got a case of embezzlement against you that’s as plain as daylight. There isn’t a judge on the bench that would take four minutes to decide it. Good morning.”
The floor upon which the little spinster stood seemed to rise and fall beneath her trembling knees. Her frail hands gripping the railing for support grew cold. She heard the heavy tread of Mrs. Miggs’s legal adviser descending the stairs; almost simultaneously the front door and Ebner Ford’s closed with a slam.
For a long moment Miss Ann stood there trembling—sick and faint.
“Oh!” she gasped feebly. “Oh! Oh!” With an effort she reached her door, entered her room, and closed it.
The cat cautiously withdrew her head between the banisters. The sunbeam had vanished, a sickly chocolate-and-blue light filtered through the dusty skylight. Close to Enoch’s door-mat she found a fly crawling with a broken wing. She played with it for a while, coaxed it half dead twice back to life, and, finally tiring of it as a plaything, killed it with one quick stroke of her paw. Then she fell slowly asleep—a double purr in her throat, her topaz yellow eyes half closed, one white tooth showing, drowsily conscious that two fat little sparrows were chirping cheerfully on the roof.
Fear overwhelmed Miss Ann. Fear led her tottering to the nearest armchair, until she fell weak and trembling into it, pressing her cold hands to her throbbing temples. Fear stood by while she fought to control herself, to think, to reason, to catch at the smallest glimmer of hope as to Ebner Ford’s honesty. The lawyer’s denunciation had overweighed any vestige of doubt. It was convincing, terrible in its briefness and truth.
Ebner Ford had swindled old Mrs. Miggs!