"Unless what?" "Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, I'm not exactly clear in my own mind as to the position. This Farren knows what Jabez has done, since Barton employed him to find it out. Now that Barton is dead, and Farren we may safely say is hard up, I rather fancy your thirty pounds'll go in blackmail. Or else Jabez, to escape the other man's clutches, will make for the States after all." "Oh, I only hope he does. It would be awful if, after so long, he were to be given up to the police--you don't think really that will happen, Mrs. Parsley, do you?" "Depends entirely, I should say, on his willingness to be bled. But anyhow I don't see why you should mind, my dear." "Oh, Mrs. Parsley, whatever Jabez has done--whatever he is, he is my brother." "Humph! There is a limit even to fraternal affection to my thinking. Jabez is a bad, bad man, and all your goodness won't turn him into a good one. While he has you to fall back upon he will never do any good for himself. Leave him to Farren's clutches, my dear, and let the pair of them kick it out in the mud." "But if Jabez gets into trouble his real name will become known. Then think of the disgrace to me." "Fiddle-de-dee; nobody can disgrace you but your own self. Besides, if the name of Jabez Crane does appear in the police report, who's going to connect it with you? There are hundreds of Cranes in the world." "Mrs. Darrow, Major Dundas." "What, that Julia creature?" Mrs. Parsley snapped her fingers. "My love, her opinion is not worth _that_. She has all the instincts but none of the brains of a really bad woman. As to Major Dundas, what can he know more than he knows already?" "He doesn't know everything." "Well I do," snapped Mrs. Parsley, "and there is nothing for _you_ to be ashamed of that I can see. If there was, do you think I'd be sitting here? I approve of all you have done--yes, even to taking that will. I wish you had burnt it. And yet I don't know----" she added. "No; then you wouldn't have got rid of that idiot. After all, things are best as they are. Leave those two to themselves, my dear, and they'll finish each other sooner or later--sooner rather than later I fancy; though she'll manage to come out 'on top' as the Americans say--d'you know, I do like the Americans, dear!" "But I really believe Hilda loves him--in fact, sometimes I think I was very wrong not to leave him to her." "Loves him! Rubbish! It'll be a day with more than twenty-four hours in it when Hilda loves anyone but herself. Bless me, I believe you've a hankering after that man still. What you saw in him I never could make out." "Sometimes I think he must have fascinated me--that it could not really be love I felt for him but pity. I saw how it was with him, and thought that I could save him."