He resented any intimation that he was not
as good a business man as he had ever been, and so it was extremely
difficult to get him to listen to reason, if anyone had the courage to
talk reason to him.
Edith, without a moment's delay, sprang lightly into a hansom, and went
to the District Railway without waiting for her carriage. From the
Mansion House Station another cab took her quickly to her father's
office.
She was immensely relieved, as she passed through, to see the clerks
working as if nothing particular had happened. On entering her father's
room, she found him pacing up and down the apartment, while her cousin
sat, apparently absorbed in his own affairs, at his desk. Her father was
evidently greatly excited.
'Edith,' he cried the moment she entered, 'where is that money I gave you
two years ago?'
'It is invested,' she answered, turning slightly pale.
Her father laughed--a hoarse, dry laugh.
'Just as I thought,' he sneered--'put in such shape that a person
cannot touch a penny of it, I suppose. In what is it invested? I must
have that money.'
'How soon do you need it, father?
'I want it just now, at this moment; if I don't have that money I am a
ruined man.'
'This moment. I suppose, means any time to-day, before the bank closes?'
Her father looked at her for a moment, then said:
'Yes that is what it means.
'I will try and get you the money before that time.'
'My dear girl,' he said bitterly, 'you don't know what you are talking
about.
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