Her flow of frightful coarse invectives came to an abrupt end. Colonel Carmichael, who knew now why his presence had been required, leaned forward and pushed her firmly down in her seat.
"For Heaven's sake, Mrs. Cary, hold your tongue!" he expostulated, in a rapid, emphatic undertone. "You don't know what you are saying. You are not in England. A little more of that sort of thing, and our lives aren't worth an hour's purchase."
"I don't care," she retorted, with all the headlong brutality of her origin. "It's true what I say! It's true!"
"It is true." The interruption came from the Rajah himself. He had risen and stood before them, very pale, but calm and composed, his eyes fixed with haggard resolution on the furious face of his accuser. "It is true. I am a swindler. I have ruined you all. Why should you believe it was done unwittingly? Yet that is true also. I, like my poor friend here whom I used as my tool, believed that I was doing the best for you all. But I have ruined you. I have done worse than that—I have ruined my country, my people. You have friends who will help you in your distress, but who will help my people? I pulled them out of their miserable homes only to cast them into deeper misery. I have taken their pitiful savings, meaning, without the use of charity, to increase them tenfold. I have taken everything from them. I gave a hope, and have left them with a deeper despair. Not all my wealth—and not a stone, not a farthing piece shall be held back from your and their just claims upon me—will fill up the ruin of those I wished so well. It is true—I stand before you all a dishonored man."
There was a moment's petrified silence. Even Mrs. Cary's coarse nature stood baffled before this pitiless, dignified self-accusal. Nor could the Colonel find a word to say. He had been ready—knowing the native character—to defend Mrs. Cary from the stroke of a revenging dagger. His half-outstretched arm sank powerless before the stroke of these few words, spoken with a calm which thinly covered a chaos of remorse and broken-hearted grief.
"I have a question I should like to ask you, Mr. Travers."
There was a general uneasy start. Each shook off his brooding considerations and turned with surprise to this unexpected speaker. It was Beatrice, hitherto silent and apparently unmoved, who leaned across to Travers. He himself felt the blood rise to his face. In his absorbed state he had not noticed her presence, and now that he met her cold eyes a curious discomfort crept over him—a discomfort that was nearly fear.
"I will answer your question to the best of my ability," he said quietly.
"The Rajah has spoken of you as his tool, and I think from your tone that you think yourself aggrieved. In what way have you suffered? What is your share of the losses?"
"I have lost all I have."