’We were all summoned to the study when the cheque was missed.  Etta fetched me.  She said very little, and looked unusually pale.  Giles was in a terrible state of anger, she informed me, and Leah was speaking to him.

’Alas! she had been speaking to some purpose.  I found Eric almost dumb with fury.  Giles had refused to believe his assertion of innocence, and he had no proof.  Leah’s statement had been overwhelming, and bore the outward stamp of veracity.

’She told her master that, thinking she heard a noise, and being fearful of thieves, she had crept down in her dressing-gown to the study, and, to her horror, had seen Mr. Eric with his hand in his brother’s desk, and she could take her oath that he put some paper or other in his pocket.  She had not liked to disturb her master, not knowing that there was money in the case.

’Ursula, I cannot tell you any more that passed.  That woman had effectually blackened my poor boy’s honour.  No one believed his word, though he swore that he was innocent.  I heard high words pass between the brothers.  I know Giles called Eric a liar and a thief, and Eric rushed at him like a madman, and then I fainted.  When I recovered I found Lady Betty crying over me and Leah rubbing my hands.  No one else was there.  Eric had dashed up to his room, and Giles and Etta were in the drawing-room.  I told Leah to go out of my sight, for I hated her; and I felt I did hate her.  And when she left us alone I managed, with Lady Betty’s help, to crawl up to Eric’s room.  But, though we heard him raging about it, he would not admit us.  So I went and lay down on my bed and slept from sheer grief and exhaustion.

’When I woke from that stupor,—­for it was more stupor than sleep,—­it was late in the afternoon.  I shall always believe the wine Leah gave me was drugged.  How I wish I had dashed the glass away from my lips!  But I was weak, and she had compelled me to drink it.

’Lady Betty was still sitting by me.  She seemed half frightened by my long sleep.  She said Eric had come in and had kissed me, but very lightly, so as not to disturb me.  And she thought there were tears in his eyes as he went out.  Ursula, I have never seen him since.  He left the house almost immediately afterwards, but no one saw him go.  By some strange oversight Giles’s telegram to the London Bank to stop the cheque did not reach them in time.  And yet Etta went herself to the telegraph-office.  As you may have perhaps heard, a tall fair young man, with a light moustache, cashed the cheque early in the afternoon.  Yes, I know, Ursula, the circumstantial evidence is rather strong just here.  I am quite aware that it was possible for Eric after leaving our house to be in London at the time mentioned, but no one can prove that it was Eric.

’Edgar Brown is tall and fair, and there are plenty of young men answering to that description; and I maintain, and shall maintain to my dying day,—­and I am sure Mr. Cunliffe agrees with me,—­that it was not Eric who presented that cheque.  The clerk told Giles that the young man had a scar across his cheek and a slight cut, though he was decidedly good-looking.  But Giles refused to believe this.  He says the clerk made a mistake about the last.