She had fancied victory, incredible, unhoped-for-victory to be almost within her grasp; and lo, it was dashed from her hand, it was farther from her than ever. And she could do no more. Courage, strength, hope were spent, shaken as she was by the emotions of the past hour. She could no no more; a little more and he might strike her. She crept out weeping, and went, blinded by her tears, up the stairs, up, stair by stair, to hide herself in her room. There had been a moment when she had fancied that he was melting, but all had been in vain. She had come close to him, but in the end he had put her from him. He had thrust her farther from him than before. Her only consolation, if consolation she had, was that she had spoken, that the truth was known, that she had no longer any secret to weigh her down. But she had failed. CHAPTER XXX Meantime the old man, left to himself, sat for a while, deeply moved. He breathed quickly, wiping his brow from time to time with a hand that trembled, and for some minutes it was upon the last and the least unwelcome aspect of the matter that he dwelt. So that was the point of it all, was it? That was the end and the aim of this clandestine, this disgraceful intrigue! This conspiracy! They had made this silly woman-child, soft like all her sex, their puppet, and using her they had thought that he, too, might be drawn into their game and used and exploited for their profit. But they had been mad, mad, as they would learn, to think it. They must have been mad to dream of it. Or desperate. Ay, that must be it. Desperate! But as he grew cooler, and the first impulse, so natural in him, to pin his enemies and shake them, began to lose its force, less pleasant aspects of the matter rose before him. For the girl and her nonsense and her bad, bad behavior, he did not tell himself, he would not allow, that it was that which hurt him most. On the contrary, he affected to put that from him—for the time. He told himself and strove to believe that he could deal with it when it pleased him. He could easily put an end to that folly. Girls were only girls, and she’d forget. He would deal with that later. But Arthur’s five thousand—that would be lost, if the girl’s story were true. Five thousand! It was a fine sum and a d—d pity! The Squire’s avarice rose in arms as he thought of it. Five thousand! And that silly woman, Arthur’s mother—he would have to provide for her. She would be penniless, almost penniless.