Lucy gave a gasp: “Oh, Allan!”
He had a valise containing all her papers. “I have brought everything up to date,” he said. “There are all the accounts, and the correspondence. Anyone will be able to find exactly how things stand.”
“Allan,” she said, “this is really cruel.”
“I am very sorry,” he answered, “but there is nothing else that I can do.”
“But did I not have a right to sell that stock to Stanley Ryder?” she cried.
“You had a perfect right to sell it to anyone you pleased,” he said. “But you had no right to ask me to take charge of your affairs, and then to keep me in the dark about what you had done.”
“But, Allan,” she protested, “I only sold it three days ago.”
“I know that perfectly well,” he said; “but the moment you made up your mind to sell it, it was your business to tell me. That, however, is not the point. You tried to use me as a cat's-paw to pull chestnuts out of the fire for Stanley Ryder.”
He saw her wince under the words. “Is it not true?” he demanded. “Was it not he who told you to have me try to get that information?”
“Yes, Allan, of course it was he,” said Lucy. “But don't you see my plight? I am not a business woman, and I did not realise—”