As she was doing this, she noticed the little pile of letters that the concierge had handed to her. The top one had not come by post, and was unstamped. Ethel knew the writing very well. It was that of the clerk who sent out demands and receipts for the rent at the office.
"Ah!" she said; "here is the receipt for the quarter's rent." She had given her mother the money to pay it some time ago, and without thinking what she was doing, she opened the envelope.
Mrs. McMahon rose from her seat in considerable agitation. Her hands trembled a little, and a bright colour came into her wan face.
"Why, mother," Ethel said in alarm, "this is not a receipt at all! This is a letter from the office saying that the rent is much overdue, and pressing for immediate payment. I gave you the money!" The words died away from her lips as she saw the old lady, a picture of embarrassment, standing before her.
"My dear," said Mrs. McMahon, in a shaking voice, "you really must allow me to manage the household finances in my own way. I am older and more experienced in life than you. I have temporarily—er—well, invested the rent money in the hopes, in the almost certainty, that in a day or so I shall be repaid a hundred-fold."
Ethel sat down at the table with a deep sigh. "Oh, mother!" she said in a pleading voice, "how could you, how could you really? I suppose that it is one of those wretched lotteries again. I should not like to think how many precious francs have been simply thrown away in the last year or two. Hundreds and hundreds. It is simply madness to spend two or three hundred francs on a ticket for one of the wretched things when we have hardly money for the necessaries of life."
The old lady began to cry weakly. "I did it for the best, Ethel," she said. "I am sure I thought that my bad luck could not go on much longer. I had such hopes this time."
Ethel saw her opportunity. While her mother was in this state of penitence she might perhaps make a lasting impression.
"Mother," she said, earnestly, "gambling nearly ruined my grandfather; it quite ruined father. We could not be much worse off than we are, but don't throw away the last thing that keeps us from absolute starvation. Do not destroy the roof over our heads! If there were only something in it, I should not so much mind. To win anything in these affairs robs nobody. But there never is anything in it, worse luck. From us, at any rate, the spirit of Chance has turned her head; gambling of any sort is ruin."