'Repaid!' exclaimed Jane harshly, rendered furious by the charge laid against her child, coming on her at a moment when maddened with anxiety as to her fate. 'Repaid, say you,' she repeated, and her eyes flamed. 'Who is it who has sold and betrayed his mates, over and over again? If he is served with the same sauce he has mixed for others—I rejoice.'
'Woman, I do not understand you.'
'Yes, you do understand me; but you will not allow that you do. How is it that my father, who worked with and for you, and spent himself in pushing your schemes, died in poverty, whereas you are rich?'
'Rich! I am not rich.'
'Oh, yes, you are—though you pretend to poverty.'
'You are a spy on me, are you?' demanded Rattenbury, with manifest alarm in his manner, movement, and tone of voice.
'How is it that my father died poor? Answer me that,' asked Jane.
'That is easily explained. He did not lay by his money. He had not that bird-lime rubbed into the palms of his hands that makes money cling—no thrift.'
'It was not so. You sucked him as an orange and then threw him aside. And my brother Philip——'
'What of him?' asked Job scornfully.