The Real Charlotte, 371 



in, her courage was not equal to it. Christopher waited for 

 her to speak, until the silence became unendurable. 



" I intended to have been here earlier," he said, saying 

 anything rather than nothing, '* but there was a great deal 

 to be got through at the Bench to-day, and I've only just 

 got away. You know I'm a magistrate now, and indiffer- 

 ently minister justice — " 



"I'm glad I hadn't gone out when you came," she 

 interrupted, as though, having found a beginning, she could 

 not lose a moment in using it. " I wanted to say that if 

 you — if you'll only give Roddy a week's time he'll pay you. 

 He only meant to borrow the money, like, and he thought 

 he could pay you before ; but, indeed, he says he'll pay you 

 in a week." Her voice was low and full of bitterest 

 humiliation, and Christopher wished that before he had ar- 

 raigned his victim, and offered him up as an oblation to his 

 half-hearted sense of duty, he had known that his infirmity 

 of purpose would have brought him back three hours after- 

 wards to offer the culprit a way out of his difficulties. It 

 would have saved him from his present hateful position, and 

 what it would have saved her was so evident, that he turned 

 his head away as he spoke, rather than look at her. 



^' I came back to tell your husband that — that he could 

 arrange things in — in some such way," he said, as guiltily 

 and awkwardly as a boy. " I'm sorry — more sorry than I 

 can say — that he should have spoken to you about it. Of 

 course, that was my fault. I should have told him then 

 what I came to tell him now." 



" He's gone out now to see about selling his horses and 

 the furniture/' went on Francie, scarcely realising all of 

 Christopher's leniency in her desire to prove Lambert's 

 severe purity of action. Her mind was not capable of more 

 than one idea — one, that is, in addition to the question that 

 had monopolised it since yesterday afternoon, and Chris- 

 topher's method of expressing himself had never been easily 

 understood by her. 



" Oh, he mustn't think of doing that ! " exclaimed Chris- 

 topher, horrified that she should think him a Shylock, de- 

 manding so extreme a measure of restitution ; " it wasn't 

 the actual money question that — that we disagreed about ; 

 he can take as long as he likes about repaying me. In fact 

 — in fact you can tell him from me that — he said something 



