Dagworthy laughed, but his eyes were gathering trouble.
'You owe me nothing,' he said, affecting easiness.
'How do you mean that?' Emily gave him a direct look. Her manner had now nothing of fear, nor even the diffidence with which she had formerly addressed him. She spoke with a certain remoteness, as if her business with him were formal. The lines of her mouth were hard; her heavy lids only half raised themselves.
'I mean that you owe nothing of this kind,' he answered, rather confusedly. His confidence was less marked; her look overcame his.
'Not ten pounds?'
'Well, you don't.' He added, 'Whose is this money?'
'It is my own; I have earned it.'
'Does your father know you are paying it?'
He does not. I was not likely to speak to him of what you told me. There is the debt, Mr. Dagworthy; we have paid it, and now I will leave you.
He examined her. Even yet he could not be sure that he understood. In admitting her, he had taken it for granted that she could come with but one purpose. It was but the confirmation of the certain hope in which he had lived through the night. Was the girl a simpleton? Had she got it into her head that repayment in this way discharged his hold upon her father? It was possible; women are so ludicrously ignorant of affairs. He smiled, though darkly.