"I wish I could," she said in a frightened voice. "Do you mean to say that you really want it back?"
"Why, of course. You haven't spent it? Oh, if you have I am ruined--ruined for life."
"No, I have not spent it; but the fact is I--What a little wretch that Maggie was to tell!"
"She couldn't help herself; I made her. Now, speak out, Carrie. Oh, we need not go indoors. Where is the money? Please, please, Carrie, let me have it at once."
Elma's troubled face, her trembling hands, the anxiety depicted all over her nervous little figure, could not but show Carrie that there was something serious in the wind.
"Well," she said, "I am awfully sorry. I--I just did it in a fit of mischief. I read that letter which Kitty Malone wrote to you, and it seemed to throw light on some of your actions which had puzzled me of late. I went to your drawer and found the money, and thought I would give it to Sam to keep for you."
"To Sam Raynes?" cried Elma, backing a few steps, her voice assuming a tone of terror.
"Yes. Do be careful, Elma, or you'll fall right down into the area. Why shouldn't I lend it to Sam Raynes?"
"Well, well, it's all the same; I asked him to keep it for me."
"I'll go to him at once and get it," said Elma, preparing to run down the steps.
"I'm awfully sorry," she said, "but it's no use, he--he says we cannot have it for a week, perhaps a fortnight. He is doing a little deal with it, as he expresses it. He says perhaps we'll have it back doubled."
"What can you mean, Carrie?" Elma knew nothing whatever about speculation. That will-o'-the-wisp which leads so many astray had not yet entered into her life.
"You need not look so miserable. Won't you like to have it back again, not seven pounds but fourteen? and Sam says this will probably be the case in a week or a fortnight, or at any rate in a month from now."
"If I have to wait a month for the money," she said, "I may as well never have it. Oh Carrie, what have you done? You have ruined me, ruined me! Carrie, I cannot lead a low, common life like yours; I am not fit for it. Oh, Aunt Charlotte will never do anything more for me after this. Kitty wants the money, and I cannot give it to her. Oh, Carrie, to think that you should have ruined my life!"