"It might save servants' gossip."
"What gossip?"—in cold surprise.
"There's a desk full of Hamil's letters upstairs, judging from the writing on the envelopes." He added with a smile: "Although I don't pry, some servants do. And if there is anything in those letters you do not care to have discussed below stairs, you ought either to lock them up or destroy them."
Her face was burning hot; but she met his gaze with equanimity, slowly nodding serene assent to his suggestion.
"Shiela," he said pleasantly, "it looks to me as though what you have done for your family in that hour of need rather balances all accounts between you and them."
"What?"
"I say that you are square with them for what they have done in the past for you."
She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, Louis."
He said patiently: "You had nothing to give but your fortune, and you gave it."
"Yes."