Presently aunt and nephew, to call him what Rosabelle, ignorant of Lane’s discoveries, still believed him to be, went up to Mrs. Morrice’s boudoir. There was nothing unusual in this; it was a frequent custom when the young man called or lunched at the house.
Rosabelle thought she would start for Petersham at once, making her journey there as usual in a taxi. She always had plenty of money for her needs, as Morrice supplemented her own little modest income of a hundred a year with a very generous allowance.
As she went upstairs to her own room to make ready for her expedition, she passed her aunt’s boudoir, the door of which stood slightly ajar. It was a rather unusual circumstance, for when the two were closeted together Rosabelle had noticed that it was nearly always closed. This time it had evidently been forgotten by both.
She was not a girl who in ordinary circumstances would have condescended to listen at doors, but she could not help hearing words that startled and puzzled her.
Archie was speaking in a voice of great excitement and emotion. “But if I don’t have it I am ruined. It means that I cannot face the disgrace—there is only one alternative——” His voice had by now sunk almost to a whisper, and she could not catch what followed.
She stood rooted to the spot. The young man’s preoccupied manner at the lunch-table was accounted for. He was in some deep trouble from which he was begging Mrs. Morrice to rescue him.
She heard her aunt reply in tones that were half angry, half tearful. “How many times have you threatened me with that, and I have yielded. I have half ruined myself for you; it cannot go on much longer.”
Suddenly she felt that she was listening to a conversation not intended for her ears, and resolutely turned away and went to her own room. For the present she would say nothing, not even to Dick, of what she had heard by the purest accident. But she thought over it all the way on the long drive to Petersham. Was there yet another tragedy going on in the Morrice household, and was her placid-looking, dignified aunt the centre of it?
And what was that alternative which Archie Brookes had described in a whisper she could not catch? Had he threatened to destroy himself if his request were not acceded to? And what did Mrs. Morrice mean by saying she had half ruined herself for him?