"All I have is in there."
The young wife held out her purse with a trembling hand. The virago, snatching it from her, subjected its contents to a rude examination.
"Here's a card, a bill, two stamps, and a threepenny bit,--and that's all."
"That's all I have--every penny. I give you my word it is."
The four women stared at her, as if the surprise caused by her statement had deprived them of their power of speech. It was the publican's wife who was the first to find her tongue.
"Of all the beauties I ever heard of!--if you haven't got the cheek of fifty! Why, you yourself sent word that you'd got about four hundred pounds' worth!"
"I sent word? Four hundred pounds' worth of what?"
The lady became, on a sudden, very angry. "If you try that on with me, you two-faced cat, I'll smash your face in with my own hands!"
The little woman poured oil on the troubled waters--in a fashion of her own.
"Let's begin calmly, at any rate. Let me deal with this person, we may arrive at an understanding quicker that way--she seems to require understanding." She addressed herself to Edith, in a manner which that lady found sufficiently startling. "We will begin at the beginning. That will prevent our leaving anything in obscurity. There seems to be a good deal of obscurity about just now. You will remember that when you came out of Wandsworth jail--"