She was in his arms on the word, unable to prevent herself from bursting into tears, but passionately clasping him to her. His breath reeked of spirits, but although this shocked her, she did not recoil from him, but hugged him more tightly still.
“You should not have come!” he said unsteadily, “Felix, how could you have brought her here?”
“Warned her she wouldn’t like it,” Mr. Scunthorpe excused himself. “Very set on seeing you!”
Bertram gave a groan. “I did not mean you to know!”
She disengaged herself, wiped her tears away, and sat down on one of the chairs. “Bertram, you know that is nonsense!” she said. “Whom should you turn to if not to me? I’ am so sorry! What you must have suffered in this dreadful house!”
“Pretty, ain’t it?” he said jeeringly. “I don’t know how I came here: Leaky Peg brought me. You may as well know, Bella, I was so foxed I don’t remember anything that happened after I bolted from the Red Lion!”
“No, I quite see,” she said. “But, Bertram, pray do not go on drinking! It is all so bad, and that makes it worse! You look sadly out of sorts, and no wonder! Have you a sore throat, dearest?”
He flushed, his hand going instinctively to the handkerchief round his neck. “This! Oh, no! Gammoning the draper, my dear!” He saw her look of bewilderment, and added, with a short laugh: “You would be surprised at the cant I have learnt from my hosts here! I’ve become a spouter—at least Peg manages the business for me! Pawned, Bella, pawned! Shan’t have a rag to my back soon—not that that will signify!”
Mr. Scunthorpe, seated on the edge of the bed, exchanged a meaning look with Arabella. She said briskly: “It would signify very much! We must think what is to be done. Only tell me what you owe!”
He was reluctant to divulge the sum, but she insisted, and after a little while he blurted out: “It comes to more than seven hundred pounds! There is no possibility of my being able to get clear!”