“I would give it you, indeed I would, if I had it,” was all Maria could answer.
She could not say more if Mrs. Harding stopped until night. Mrs. Harding became at last convinced of that truth, and took her departure. Maria sat down with burning eyes; eyes into which the tears would not come.
What with one hint and another, she had grown tolerably conversant with the facts patent to the world. One whisper startled her more than any ether. It concerned Lord Averil’s bonds. What was amiss with them? That there was something, and something bad, appeared only too evident. In her terrible state of suspense, of uncertainty, she determined to inquire of Thomas Godolphin.
Writing a few words on a slip of paper, she sent it into the Bank parlour. It was a request that he would see her before he left. Thomas sent back a verbal message: “Very well.”
It was growing late in the evening before he came to her. What a day he had had! and he had taken no refreshment; nothing to sustain him. Maria thought of that, and spoke.
“Let me get you something,” she said. “Will you take some dinner here, instead of waiting to get to Ashlydyat?”
He shook his head in token of refusal. “It is not much dinner that I shall eat anywhere to-day, Maria. Did you wish to speak to me?”
“I want—to—ask——” she seemed to gasp for breath, and waited a moment for greater calmness. “Thomas,” she began again, going close to him, and speaking almost in a whisper, “what is it that is being said about Lord Averil’s bonds?”
Thomas Godolphin did not immediately reply. He may have been deliberating whether it would be well to tell her; perhaps whether it could be kept from her. Maria seemed to answer the thought.
“I must inevitably know it,” she said, striving not to tremble outwardly as well as inwardly. “Better that I hear it from you than from others.”