"Your excuse," she went on, "only confirms my previous opinion of you. You have deliberately forced yourself on a crazy, motherless child, who does not understand the ways of the world, nor, I regret to say, what is due to herself."
"I have done nothing of the kind," I said, indignantly.
"I might have known that it was degrading myself to talk to an attorney's clerk," she said, with an awful emphasis on the last two words. Then she strode away.
That evening the piano began again, but I sat stolidly and endured it. After all, there was something in what the old lady said. The strumming continued for an hour, and then stopped. In a few minutes the servant brought me a note.
"Dear Mr. Arbuthnot,
"I cannot understand when a banker is liable for a forged cheque.
"Yours sincerely,
"Marjorie Ormerod."
I wrote back to say that I had had an interview with her aunt, and appended the law on the subject of forged cheques. My note had not been dispatched more than five minutes when a knock came at the door, and Miss Ormerod walked in.
"Mr. Arbuthnot," she said, "will you kindly tell me the meaning of this note?"