George stood behind her.
"Well, have you got the luggage down?" She frowned, but George knew her nervous frown and could rightly interpret it.
He nodded.
"Ought I to put 'Dartmoor' on the luggage-label?"
She gave a negative sign.
Why should he ask such a question? She had never breathed the name of Dartmoor. Why should he mention it? Edwin also had mentioned Dartmoor. "What, on Dartmoor?" Edwin had said. Did Edwin suspect her correspondence? No. Had he suspected he would have spoken. She knew him. And even if Edwin had suspected, George could not conceivably have had suspicions, of any sort.... There he stood, the son of a convict, with no name of his own. He existed--because she and the convict had been unable to keep apart; his ignorance of the past was appalling to think of, the dangers incident to it dreadful; his easy confidence before the world affected her almost intolerably. She felt that she could never atone to him for having borne him.
A faint noise at the front-door reached the drawing-room.
"Here's Nunks," exclaimed George, and ran off eagerly.
This was his new name for his stepfather.
Hilda returned quickly to the boudoir. As she disappeared therein, she heard George descanting to Edwin on the beauties of his luggage-label, and Edwin rubbing his feet on the mat and removing his mackintosh.