"I know. I know now. You are a brave woman. It was the only thing to do. If you had not burnt it he would have foreclosed. And of course I shall pay him back when I can. I said so. He knows I'm a gentleman. He has my word for it. A gentleman's word is as good as his bond. I shall repay him gradually."
"I don't understand," said Janet, who felt as if a cold hand had been laid upon her heart.
"Oh! You can speak freely to me. And to think of your keeping silence all this time—even to me. You always were one to keep things to yourself, but you might have just given me a hint. My I O U is not forthcoming, and Brand as good as knows you burned it. He knows you went up to his flat and burned something when his wife was dying. He wasn't exactly angry; he was too far gone for that, as if he couldn't care for anything one way or the other. He looks ten years older. But, of course, he's a business man, whether his wife is alive or dead, and I could see he was forcing himself to attend to business to keep himself from thinking. He said very little. He was very distant. Infernally distant he was. He is no gentleman, and he doesn't understand the feelings of one. If it hadn't been that he was in trouble, and well—for the fact that I had borrowed money of him—I would not have stood it for a moment. I'm not going to allow any cad to hector over me, be he who he may. He mentioned the facts. He said he had always had a high opinion of you, and that he should come down and see you on the subject next week. You must think what to say, Janet."
"I never burned your I O U," said Janet in a whisper, becoming cold all over. It was a revelation to her that Fred could imagine she was capable of such a dishonourable action.
"Why, Fred," she said, deeply wounded, "you know I could not do such a thing. It would be the same as stealing."
"No, it wouldn't," said Fred, with instant irritation, "because you know I should pay him back. And so I will—only I can't at present. And, of course, you knew too, you must have guessed, that your two thousand—— And as you are going to be married, that is important too. I should have been ruined, sold up, if that I O U had turned up, and you yourself would have been in a fix. You knew that when you got hold of it and burned it. Come, Janet, you can own to me you burned it—between ourselves."
"I burnt nothing."
Fred peered at her open-mouthed.
"Janet, that's too thin. You must go one better than that when Brand comes. He knows you burnt something when you went up to his flat."
"I burnt nothing," said Janet again. It was too dark to see her face.