“Disposed of! What have you done with it?”
“I have purchased an annuity for some one.”
“For whom? for me?”
“No, mother, not for you. You have the purchase money of Chillacot.”
“For whom then? I insist on knowing.”
“For a man who has been crippled, and is unable to earn his livelihood.”
“What nonsense! What absurd fit of heroic charity has come over you? Since you went to town in that strange, hurried fashion at the time of your father’s death, you have been altered from what you were before, as different as canister beef from that which is fresh from the ox.”
Giles said nothing in self-defence.
“But I insist on knowing on whom you have thrown this money away.”
“I do not wish to tell—on a man who has the nearest of claims on me.”