Carrie was standing with her back to her; she was making up something in tissue-paper.
"Well, Elma," she said, looking up at her sister, "what is up?"
"Everything is up," said Elma.
"What do you mean?"
"Everything is up and everything is over. What are you doing with that paper, Carrie?"
"I am folding up the money I have just got for Kitty Malone?"
"The money you have got for Kitty Malone! Has—has Sam Raynes returned the sovereigns?"
"Bless you, poor Sam can't do impossibilities. No; this money has nothing whatever to do with Sam. I am folding it up, and giving her a little account with it. We got exactly eleven pounds eleven shillings for the clothes and the watch and chain. She can redeem them all within a month if she likes. Here is the pawnbroker's receipt; tell her to keep it until she does. She can redeem them whenever she cares to pay back eleven pounds eleven shillings with interest. My commission at ten per cent, is one pound three shillings and tenpence—that leaves a balance of ten pounds seven shilling and twopence; it will doubtless get her nicely out of her difficulty. She ought to be thankful to me to her dying day. Look here, Elma, if you are worried about things—and I can guess what is the matter pretty well; for I happen to know that Kitty Malone made a clean breast of your secret not long ago—you will be glad to get out of the house. Here, take this money to her, and be off, can't you?"
Elma still did not speak. That cold, stunned feeling was pressing round her heart. She did not much care whether she was in the house or not. Just at that moment, however, a loud slam of the front door caused both the girls to run to the window. Mrs. Steward had sailed down the steps. Mrs. Steward with her long train streaming behind her, was walking up Constantine Road. The next instant Mrs. Lewis burst into the room.
"Well, Elma," she cried, "this is a pretty state of things. Your aunt has told me everything. What a miserable woman I am!"