‘Dick Crawshay never left a friend in a ditch yet, and he had no business to say that of me,’ blurted out the yeoman indignantly. Then, checking himself, he added: ‘But there’s sense in it too. Maybe he wants to break off himself; and I shouldn’t wonder, either, if he has heard what that fellow Wrentham says about your goings-on with Beecham.’
‘Goings-on with Mr Beecham!’
‘Ay, that’s it.... Come now, lass, tell truth and shame the devil—was it Beecham you went off in such haste to see to-day?’
‘I went to see Mr Shield, and saw Mr Beecham at the same time.’
‘Then it is true, mother—you see she owns to it,’ said Uncle Dick, his passion again rising. ‘And you’ve been writing to Beecham and meeting him underhand.’
‘Not underhand, uncle,’ she exclaimed, drawing back in surprise and pain. The word ‘underhand’ assumed the significance of a revelation to her; but even now she did not see clearly the extent of the misconceptions to which her conduct was liable, if criticised by unfriendly eyes.
‘You say it ain’t underhand! I say it’s mortal like it. You never said a word about Beecham this morning, though you must have known that you were going to see him.... Come now, did you not?’
He added the question in a softer tone, as if hoping for a negative answer. But Madge evaded a direct reply.
‘What is in the letters to make you so vexed with me?’ she asked.
‘What’s in them?—Why, Shield says that Philip has been a fool, allowing himself to be cheated on all sides, and that there’s nothing for him but the Bankrupt Court. That’s a fine thing for a man to come to with such a fortune in such a short time. But I might have known it would end in this way—it’s the same thing always with them that set up for improving on the ways of Providence.’