“No, no,” he said angrily. “You are going to talk and preach. You don’t want to see me disgracing you all by being cast in gaol?”
Disgracing them! Louise’s first thought was of Duncan Leslie, and a pang of agony shot through her. How could she ever look him in the face again? A chill that seemed to paralyse shot through her. The hope that she had nursed was cast out, and her brother’s word seemed to open out a future so desolate and blank that she turned upon him angrily.
“Harry!” she cried, “this is not—cannot be true.” He paid no heed to her words, but stood biting his nails, evidently thinking, and at last he turned upon her like one at bay, as she said, after a painful pause, “You do not answer. Am I to believe all this? No, I cannot—will not believe it, Harry. It can’t—it can’t be true.”
“Yes,” he said, as if waking from a dream. “One of the lads would take me over in his lugger. St. Malo; that would do. Louie, what money have you?”
“Then it is true?” she said.
“True? Yes; it’s true enough.”
“Then you—oh, Harry, for pity’s sake—Harry!”
She burst into a wild fit of sobbing.
“That’s right,” he cried savagely. “I came to you for help and you go into hysterics. There, unlock that door, and get me something to eat, and while I’m enjoying myself, you can send Liza for the police.”
“Harry!”