While Crawshay was venting this bit of ill-humour, he stood in the doorway, and as Madge had risen, the lamp was below the level of her face, so that he could not see how ill she looked.
‘I hope I have not forgotten anything,’ she said hastily; ‘you remember the first papers were filled up by—by Philip.’
‘They’re right enough; but here’s a letter from the secretary you didn’t even open.’
‘It must have come after I went away.’
‘Like enough, like enough,’ he went on irritably, although the dame had now grasped his arm, and was endeavouring to stop him. ‘Away early and back late—that’s the shortest cut into a mess I know of.—Where have you been?’
It was evident that the unopened letter of the Smithfield secretary had less to do with his ill-humour than he was trying to make believe. The question with which he closed his grumble suggested the real cause of vexation.
‘Quiet thyself, Dick,’ his wife interposed. ‘Madge is not well to-night, and it makes her worse to find thee angry.’
‘Could a man help being angry?’ he said, becoming more angry because of his attention being called to the fact that he was so, as is the wont of quick tempers. ‘Have you told her about them blessed letters?’
‘I have told her that we received them: to-morrow, we can tell her what they are about.’
‘I would rather know at once, aunt,’ said Madge calmly, as she advanced to Crawshay, and only a slight tremor of the voice betrayed her agitation. ‘They concern Philip; and I should not be able to sleep if anything was kept back from me. He is in cruel trouble, Uncle Dick, and he says you want me to break off from him, and that has upset me a little, although I know that you would not ask me to do such a thing, when he is in misfortune.’