"Here," says Terence himself, coming leisurely towards her from a side-passage.
"Come in here with me," says Miss Priscilla; and they all follow her into the morning-room.
Here she turns and faces the unconscious Terence with a pale, reproachful face.
"When I tell you I have just come from Mitson the coast-guard, and that I thanked him for having lent you his gun, you will understand how I have been grieved and pained to-day," she says, a tremor in her voice.
Terence is no longer unconscious; and Monica feels that her heart is beating like a lump of lead.
"Oh! what is it, Priscilla?" asks Miss Penelope, greatly frightened.
"A tale of craft and cunning," says Miss Priscilla in a hollow tone. "Mitson tells me he never lent him that gun. Terence has wilfully deceived us, his poor aunts, who love him and only desire his good. He has, I fear, basely mystified us to accomplish his own ends, and has indeed departed from the precious truth."
"I never said Mitson did lend it to me," says Terence, sullenly: "you yourself suggested the idea, and I let it slide, that was all."
"All! Is not prevarication only a mean lie? Oh, Terence, I am so deeply grieved! I know not what to say to you."
The scene is becoming positively tragical. Already a sense of crime of the blackest and deepest dye is overpowering Terence.