No answer. At last she said, "Molly knows it all."
Mrs. Gibson, too, had been awed into silence by her husband's grave manner, and she did not like to give vent to the jealous thought in her mind that Molly had known the secret of which she was ignorant. Mr. Gibson replied to Cynthia with some sternness:
"Yes! I know that Molly knows it all, and that she has had to bear slander and ill words for your sake, Cynthia. But she refused to tell me more."
"She told you that much, did she?" said Cynthia, aggrieved.
"I could not help it," said Molly.
"She didn't name your name," said Mr. Gibson. "At the time I believe she thought she had concealed it—but there was no mistaking who it was."
"Why did she speak about it at all?" said Cynthia, with some bitterness. Her tone—her question stirred up Mr. Gibson's passion.
"It was necessary for her to justify herself to me—I heard my daughter's reputation attacked for the private meetings she had given to Mr. Preston—I came to her for an explanation. There's no need to be ungenerous, Cynthia, because you've been a flirt and a jilt, even to the degree of dragging Molly's name down into the same mire."
Cynthia lifted her bowed-down head, and looked at him.
"You say that of me, Mr. Gibson? Not knowing what the circumstances are, you say that?"