She sat rigid with bitterness and indignation.
The next day she went down to see his mother.
"Didn't you buy the furniture for Walter ?" she asked.
"Yes, I did," tartly retorted the elder woman.
"And how much did he give you to pay for it ?" The elder woman was stung with fine indignation.
"Eighty pound, if you're so keen on knowin'," she replied.
"Eighty pounds! But there are forty-two pounds still owing!" "I can't help that." "But where has it all gone ?" "You'll find all the papers, I think, if you look--beside ten pound as he owed me, an' six pound as the wedding cost down here." "Six pounds!" echoed Gertrude Morel.

It seemed to her monstrous that, after her own father had paid so heavily for her wedding, six pounds more should have been squandered in eating and drinking at Walter's parents' house, at his expense.
"And how much has he sunk in his houses ?" she asked.
"His houses--which houses ?" Gertrude Morel went white to the lips.

He had told her the house he lived in, and the next one, was his own.
"I thought the house we live in--" she began.
"They're my houses, those two," said the mother-in-law.

"And not clear either.

It's as much as I can do to keep the mortgage interest paid." Gertrude sat white and silent.