"I say that I have kept these things from you. I wish I could have kept them from you always; but it seems to me that exposure is arising in many ways, and it is better that you should be prepared for it, if it must come. I awake now in the morning to apprehension; I am alarmed throughout the day at my own shadow, dreading what unknown fate may not be falling upon them. Herbert in peril of the hangman: Cyril in peril of a forced voyage to the penal settlements."
A sensation of utter fear stole over Mrs. Dare. For the moment, she could not speak. But she rallied her powers to defend Cyril.
"I think Cyril is hardly used, what with one thing and another. He was to have gone on that French journey, and at the last moment was pushed out of it for Halliburton. I felt more vexed at it, almost, than Cyril himself, and I spoke a word of my mind to Mrs. Ashley."
"You did?"
"Yes. I did not speak of it in the light of disappointment to Cyril; the actual fact of not taking the journey; so much as of the vexation he experienced at being supplanted by one whom he—whom we all—consider inferior to himself, William Halliburton. I let Mrs. Ashley know that we regarded it as a most unmerited and uncalled-for slight; and I took care to drop a hint that we believed Halliburton to have been guilty in that cheque affair."
Mr. Dare paused. "What did Mrs. Ashley say?" he presently asked.
"She said very little. I never saw her so frigid. She intimated that Mr. Ashley was a competent judge of his own business——"
"I mean as to the cheque?" interrupted Mr. Dare.
"She was more frigid over that than over the other. She preferred not to discuss it, she answered; who might have stolen it; or who not."
"I can set you right on both points," said Mr. Dare. "Cyril came to me, complaining of being superseded in this French journey, and I complied with his request, that I should go and remonstrate with Mr. Ashley—being a simpleton for my pains. Mr. Ashley informed me that he never had entertained the slightest intention of despatching Cyril, and why Cyril should have taken up the notion, he could not tell. Mr. Ashley went on to say that he did not consider Cyril sufficiently steady to be intrusted abroad alone——"