“You can’t get them away from him,” said Lady Bellingham despairingly. “What does he say in his letter?”
“Why, that he will be happy to restore them to me in return for his cousin’s freedom! How dare he insult me so? Oh, I will never forgive him!”
“Says he will restore them? Well, I must say, my dear, that is very handsome of him! To be sure, it is not as good as twenty thousand pounds, but it would be a great relief to be rid of some of our debts!”
“And if I don’t send Adrian about his business, he will foreclose on you,” added Miss Grantham.
Lady Bellingham gave a moan. “The brute! I cannot possibly pay him! I suppose he wants me to go upon my knees to him, but I won’t do it! I won’t!”
“Go on your knees to him?” cried Miss Grantham. “No indeed! I would never speak to you again if you did.”
“Very likely no one will ever speak to me again—no one I care to speak to, at all events—for I shall be in a debtors’ prison, and shall end my days there. Oh, Deb, how can you be so heartless?”
Miss Grantham put her arms round the afflicted matron. “I’m not heartless, dearest, indeed I’m not, and you shan’t be put into any prison! It is not you that hateful man wishes to punish, but me! He thinks to frighten me, but I have still a trick or two up my sleeve, and so he shall find! I’ll get those bills back, and won’t give Adrian up—at least, I will really, but Ravenscar shall not know of it until he owns himself beaten—and—”
“Don’t!” begged her aunt. “I cannot bear it! Nothing will do for you but to ruin us all, and that is the matter in a nutshell! And I do think Ravenscar must be the most disagreeable man in the world, besides the oddest-behaved! If he means to foreclose, why doesn’t he tell me so? I am sure it is not your business!”
“Oh, he wrote to me because I made him so angry that he wants to punish me! I am sure he has no quarrel at all with you, aunt, so pray do not put yourself in a taking! This is all wicked spite! But I will teach him a lesson!”