The ordeal to-day was not prolonged, for, to the manifest disappointment of the assemblage of female ghouls, only a brief statement of the charge and formal evidence of arrest were given, and an adjournment asked for and granted.
The remainder of that dark, wet day was passed in a series of conferences with her father, and with the lawyers, all more or less painful, all important; but throughout she managed to maintain an appearance of cheerfulness and confidence, telling herself the while that she must be brave and strong and clear-headed, “for Roger’s sake.”
But now, alone with Winnie in the cosy drawing-room at Chelsea, came reaction. She felt and looked utterly exhausted, unutterably anxious and sorrow-stricken.
Her father had gone home, but was to return after dinner to discuss a vital matter—how, among them, they were to raise money for the defence. Mr. Spedding had named five thousand pounds as the least amount necessary. It must be raised, but how none of them knew at present. Roger’s salary had been a generous one, but he had no private means, no near or wealthy relatives, and only a very few hundred pounds at call—which had seemed an ample reserve wherewith to start housekeeping, as they had already furnished the charming little flat in Buckingham Gate which was to be their first home.
Grace herself had a tiny income, only just over a hundred a year, a legacy from an aunt, but it was strictly tied up under a trustee, and she could not touch the principal.
Therefore this question of money was a new and terrible difficulty that must be surmounted somehow.
In any other conceivable emergency they would have had Sir Robert Rawson to back them, with his enormous wealth and influence; but now he was their enemy, able to bring all his resources against them.
“I can’t understand it all,” Grace resumed presently. “It seems as if we had become entangled, in a moment, in a great web of evil. But why? What have we done or left undone to deserve it? Roger did distrust that poor thing—disliked her in a way, simply because of the distrust. But he would never have harmed her, or any living creature. And yet they fix on him of all people, just because he happened to be near at hand, and to be concerned with those papers!”
“That’s only because, as Austin says, they’re just a lot of guys who can’t see as far as their own silly noses. And he’s on the trail anyhow, so cheer up, darling. Everything’s going to come right soon perhaps. You trust Austin!”
Grace sighed and glanced restlessly at the clock.