“Godfrey Harrison, Beatrice's brother?”
“Yes, her much-admired, accomplished, ill-used brother, the victim of her husband's stinginess.”
“If that be true, then Godfrey is simply a...”
“You mean an unmitigated scoundrel. Quite so, Florence, and a number of other words we won't go over. I tell you,” and Leslie sprang to his feet, “there is some use in swearing; if it had not been for one or two expressions that came to my memory suddenly to-day, I should have been ill. Curious to say, the lawyer seemed to enjoy them as much as myself, so it must be a bad case.”
“But I don't understand—if Godfrey spent Trixy's money, how is there anything to manage? Did he pay it back?”
“No, he did not, and could not; he has not enough brains to earn eighteen pence except by cheating, and if by any chance he came into a fortune, would grudge his sister a pound.”
“Then...?”
“Don't you begin to catch a glimpse of the facts? Why, Marsden toiled and scraped, and in the end, so the doctors say, killed himself to replace the money, and he had just succeeded before his death.”
“How good of him! but I don't see the necessity of all this secrecy on his part, and all those stories about low interest that he told Trixy.”
“There was no necessity; if it had been some of us, we would have let Mrs. Marsden know what kind of brother she had, and ordered him out of the country on threat of jail.