Mrs. Wells began to cry softly.
“Please don't. We need all our courage, our intelligence. It doesn't matter how wrong you have been in the past, if you are right in the present. The trouble with you, dear child, is that you cannot see the truth, although it is right under your eyes.”
“But I am telling the truth,” Penelope protested tearfully. “I am not keeping anything back.”
“You don't mean to keep anything back—but—”
The psychic's deep-set, searching eyes seemed to read into the soul of the fair sufferer.
“You showed me parts of your diary once—what you wrote in New York after your husband died—before you went to France. There were four years—you remember?”
“Yes.”
“How would you interpret those four years, Pen? You were not worried about money—Julian left you enough to live on. You had no children, no responsibilities. You were in splendid health and very beautiful. What was in your mind most of the time? How did you get that idea of adopting a child in France? It must have come gradually. How did it come? Why did it come?”
“Because I was—lonely.”
“Is that all? Think!”