'He's quite well?'
'Oh yes, quite well.'
Again Alice paused. Emma's heart was beating painfully. She knew now
that Richard's sister had not come on an ordinary visit; she felt
that the call to Wanley had had some special significance. Alice did
not ordinarily behave in this hesitating way.
'Did--did he send me a message?'
'Yes.'
But even now Alice could not speak. She found a way of leading up to
the catastrophe.
'Oh, mother has been going on so, Emma! What do you think? She won't
have anything to do with the house any longer. She's given me the
keys and all the money she had, and she's going to live just in her
bedroom. She says she'll get her food from the kitchen herself, and
she won't have a thing done for her by any one. I'm sure she means
it; I never saw her in such a state. She says if she'd ever so
little money of her own, she'd leave the house altogether. She's
been telling me I've no feeling, and that I'm going to the bad, that
I shall live to disgrace her, and I can't tell you what. Everything
is so miserable! She says it's all the money, and that she knew from
the first how it would be. And I'm afraid some of what she says is
true, I am indeed, Emma. But things happen in a way you could never
think. I half wish myself the money had never come.
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