"Open it!" she said imperiously. "Open it, and see what is inside,--he only brought it to-day." Oliver opened the envelope. Folded in two pieces of paper was a packet of bank-notes held together with an elastic band. Germaine looked up questioningly at his wife. Bella hung her head. She had the grace to feel embarrassed, ashamed in this moment that she believed to be the moment of her exculpation. Her pretty little hands, laden with rings, each one of which had been given her by her husband, were again toying with the fringe of her blue sash. The silence grew intolerable. "I know I've been a beast,"--her voice faltered, broke into tears. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but--but you know, Oliver, Rabbit isn't like an ordinary man." "When did he begin to give you money?" asked Oliver, in a low voice. "A long time ago," she answered, vaguely. "He came in one day when I was awfully upset about a bill--a bill of that old devil, Bliss,--and he was so kind, Oliver. He explained how awfully fond he was of us both. He said we were his only friends--I always _have_ been nice to him, you know. He said he couldn't spend the money he'd got----" "How much have you had from him?" "I can tell you exactly," she said eagerly, and again she moved towards her bureau. Bella felt utterly dejected; somehow she had not expected Oliver to take the news quite in this way; he looked dreadful--not relieved, as she had thought he would do. It was with slow lagging steps that she walked back to where her husband was still standing with the envelope and its contents crushed in his right hand. Bella's love of tidiness and method had stood her in fatally good stead. She had put down all the sums she had received from Henry Buck, but in such a fashion that any one else looking at the figures would not have known money was in question. Oliver stared down at the piece of paper. Insensibly he straightened his shoulders as if to meet calmly a physical blow. "Are these pounds?" he asked. She nodded. "But Bella, it's an enormous sum,--over four thousand." "I suppose it is," she said listlessly. Her husband put the paper in his breast pocket; then he hesitated a moment, and Bella thought he was perhaps going to hand her back the envelope and its contents. But that also, to her chagrin, disappeared into his pocket. "I suppose the money Buck brought you to-day is included in this amount?" Bella shook her head sadly. "I hadn't time to put it down," she said. "Well, I'll see what can be done." "I suppose you mean to pay it all back? I suppose"--her voice was trembling with self-pity--"that we shall have to go and live in the country now?" He said nothing,--only looked at her with that same cold look of surprise and alienation. He was leaving the room when a cry from her brought him back. She clutched his hand.