Mrs. Wyndham rested her head on Phyllis's arm and drank the wine she held to her lips.
"Last March," she began feebly, "Mr. Abbott came to me and explained—or seemed to explain—matters to me. At that time he told me he had bought iron for the works as a speculation, expecting it to appreciate in value. Instead it fell, and the business was temporarily embarrassed in consequence. He asked me to let him negotiate a loan with this house as security."
Mr. Hurd, who had been pacing the floor furiously, stopped short, with a fervent imprecation. Halting before the feeble creature who had been so duped, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and gazed down on her. "And you did it?" he growled.
Mrs. Wyndham bowed her head lower. "It was a mere formality, he said. The business needed but to be tided over its present embarrassment, which the ready money thus raised would do, and then the loan would be paid and the house stand as free as before. So I gave it as security."
"Just heaven! Why didn't Henry leave everything in trust for you in the hands of a decent man!" cried Mr. Hurd, furiously. "To trick a woman, and such a guileless woman as you, like that! The miserable, currish scamp! Why didn't you mention this to me, madam?"
"Because Mr. Abbott begged me not to; he said none but ourselves, partners in the concern, stockholders of the corporation, should know of it, or it might make the stock panicky—I am sure he said panicky," murmured the wretched woman.
"Then I am afraid Miss Jessamy's picture is not so overdrawn," groaned the lawyer. "You will have no principal except what the personal property, the furniture and the pictures will bring."
"And I have ruined my children—my dear, blessed, pretty girls, for whom I would gladly die, and whose father was so happy to feel that he had secured them from the hard side of life! He knew in his youth what privation meant—my dear, good Henry. Oh, I can't bear it! I won't have it so! It isn't true!" And Mrs. Wyndham went off into hysterical cries, which ended all possibility of further discussion.
Jessamy ran to call Violet to help her mother to her room; Bab lay on the floor, a collapsed heap of misery, sobbing in terror of her mother's agony and the affliction, dimly understood, which had fallen on them in the midst of the dainty fabrics and happy plans. But Phyllis, trembling and white, yet calm, laid her cold hands on her aunt and gently forced her into quiet. She lifted her eyes, no longer blue, but jet black, with their dilated pupils blazing with righteous wrath, to Mr. Hurd's face. "Is there no law to make that villain give up what he stole?" she demanded fiercely.
The lawyer looked at her with the good fighter's quick recognition of the same quality in another. "I'll try mighty hard to find it, Phyllis," he said. "The trouble is that a consummate rogue knows how to cover his tracks. He has undoubtedly put everything out of his hands. But we'll make him show when it was done; and if he has taken such steps this winter past, we can force him to disgorge. There is one comfort: I'll make New York a confoundedly unpleasant place for him to try to do business in."