'He heard Giles come up to bed, and a sudden impulse prompted him to go down to the study and place his letter on Giles's desk. It was a very wild, foolish letter, written under strong excitement. I saw it afterwards, and felt that it had better not have been written. Among other things, he informed Giles that he would sooner destroy himself than go into Armstrong's office, and that he (Giles) had made his life so bitter to him that he thought he might as well do it: oh, Ursula, of course it was wrong of him, but indeed he had had terrible provocation. He had made up his mind to put this letter on Giles's desk before he slept: so he slipped off his boots, that I might not hear him pass my door, and crept down to the study. He had his chamber candlestick, as he feared that he might have some difficulty with the fastenings, for he had heard Giles put up the chain and bell. All our doors on that floor have chains and bells; it is one of Giles's fads. To his great surprise, the door was ajar, and when he put down the candle on the table he had a passing fancy that the thick curtains that were drawn over one of the windows moved slightly, as though from a draught of air. He blamed himself afterwards that he had not gone up to the window and examined it, but in his perturbed mood he did not take much notice; but he was certainly startled when he turned round to see Leah, in her dark dressing-gown, standing in the threshold watching him with a queer look in her eyes. There was something in her expression that made him feel uneasy.
'"I thought it was thieves," she said, and now she looked not at him, but across at the curtain. "What are you doing with master's papers, Mr. Eric?"
'"Mind your own business," returned Eric sulkily: "do you think I am going to account to you for my actions?" And he took up his candlestick and marched off.'
'And he left that woman in possession?'
'Yes,' returned Gladys in a peculiar tone, and then she hurried on: 'The next morning Giles missed a cheque for a large amount that he had received the previous night and placed in one of the compartments of his desk, and in its place he found Eric's letter. Do you notice the discrepancy here? Eric vowed to me that he had placed the letter on the desk, that he never dreamt of opening it, that he always believed Giles kept it locked, that if Giles had been careless and left the key in it he knew nothing about it. His business to the study was to put his letter where Giles would be likely to find it on entering the room. Ursula, how did that letter get into the desk?
'We were all summoned to the study when the cheque was missed. Etta fetched me. She said very little, and looked unusually pale. Giles was in a terrible state of anger, she informed me, and Leah was speaking to him.
'Alas! she had been speaking to some purpose. I found Eric almost dumb with fury. Giles had refused to believe his assertion of innocence, and he had no proof. Leah's statement had been overwhelming, and bore the outward stamp of veracity.
'She told her master that, thinking she heard a noise, and being fearful of thieves, she had crept down in her dressing-gown to the study, and, to her horror, had seen Mr. Eric with his hand in his brother's desk, and she could take her oath that he put some paper or other in his pocket. She had not liked to disturb her master, not knowing that there was money in the case.
'Ursula, I cannot tell you any more that passed. That woman had effectually blackened my poor boy's honour. No one believed his word, though he swore that he was innocent. I heard high words pass between the brothers. I know Giles called Eric a liar and a thief, and Eric rushed at him like a madman, and then I fainted. When I recovered I found Lady Betty crying over me and Leah rubbing my hands. No one else was there. Eric had dashed up to his room, and Giles and Etta were in the drawing-room. I told Leah to go out of my sight, for I hated her; and I felt I did hate her. And when she left us alone I managed, with Lady Betty's help, to crawl up to Eric's room. But, though we heard him raging about it, he would not admit us. So I went and lay down on my bed and slept from sheer grief and exhaustion.
'When I woke from that stupor,—for it was more stupor than sleep,—it was late in the afternoon. I shall always believe the wine Leah gave me was drugged. How I wish I had dashed the glass away from my lips! But I was weak, and she had compelled me to drink it.