“Let us not use unpleasant words. It’s my birthday. I’m quite grown up and you must let me help—or find help!”
“Yes; but not Rodney; not your uncle,” he said hurriedly. “He is violent, very violent. He would have no mercy on me. And I am an old man, and broken, very badly broken.”
He settled back in his chair despairingly.
“I shall have to tell Uncle Rodney; but you need have no fear of him, I promise you that.”
“He is very violent,—he and I have never been friends.”
“You imagine that. I shall take care of him. He and I understand each other perfectly,” she added, and smiled to herself.
“Mr. Carr is your lawyer, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes; but he has been away. I took advantage of his absence to do things he would never have countenanced.”
“There is Mr. Leighton.”
“No, no, not that man!” She had tried to avoid any reference to the interview of the night before, but the mention of Leighton’s name brought the whole wretched scene clearly before her again. It was he, more than her uncle, that she relied on.