"You'd better let me see it. Sir Wilfrid and I can advise you."
He held out an authoritative hand. Marcia made no movement, and the hand
dropped.
"Oh, well, if you're going to take no one's advice but your own, I suppose
you must gang your own gait!" said her brother, impatiently. "But if you're
a sensible girl you'll make it up with Newbury and let him keep you out of
it as much as possible. Betts was always a cranky fellow. I'm sorry for the
little woman, though."
And walking away to a distant window at the far end of the hall, whence all
the front approaches to the house could be seen, he stood drumming on the
glass and fixedly looking out. Sir Wilfrid, with an angry ejaculation,
approached Marcia.
"My dear, your brother isn't himself!--else he could never have spoken so
unkindly. Will you show me that letter? It will, of course, have to go to
the police."
She held it out to him obediently.
Sir Wilfrid read it. He blew his nose, and walked away for a minute.
When he returned, it was to say, with lips that twitched a little in his
smooth-shaven actor's face:
"Most touching! If one could only have known! But dear Marcia, I hope
it's not true--I hope to God, it's not true!--that you've quarreled with
Newbury?"
Marcia was standing with her head thrown back against the high marble
mantelpiece.
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