Lois said nothing. Her thoughts were busy trying to piece together the secret. With every moment distrust and suspicion were taking stronger hold upon her.
"Lois," Beatrice went on, "that is the least of it all. The worst of all is that I can not pay my debts alone. I must go on ruining others. I must ruin you."
Lois stiffened. She sat upright, as though preparing herself for a shock which she dimly anticipated.
"Tell me what you mean," she said.
"You remember it was I who tempted Rajah Nehal Singh into forming the
Marut Company—"
"That is not what you want to say. It was my husband's scheme."
"Very well, it was our scheme, if you like. At any rate, the whole responsibility rests—or should rest—upon our shoulders. We have ruined him, and we have ruined hundreds of others. It is only fair that we should bear our share of the calamity."
"And haven't we done so? You have lost all your money. That is punishment enough. And Archie, too—" She paused, a fierce note of defiance ringing out with her last words. Beatrice made no answer, and the two women looked at each other in significant silence. "You don't mean that—that it was—dishonest?"
"I have no doubt Mr. Travers believed the mine was going to be a success. But it has failed, and the whole burden of the failure rests upon others, not upon him."
"My husband is ruined, too. All his money is gone."