‘What do you mean?’
The words came from lips that moved with difficulty. Beatrice, still smiling, bent forward.
‘Is it any one that I know?’
‘Any one—? Who—?’
‘That made it necessary for you to go down into Cornwall, my dear.’
Nancy heaved a sigh, the result of holding her breath too long. She half rose, and sat down again. In a torture of flashing thoughts, she tried to determine whether Beatrice had any information, or spoke conjecturally. Yet she was able to discern that either case meant disaster; to have excited the suspicions of such a person, was the same as being unmasked; an inquiry at Falmouth, and all would at once be known.
No, not all. Not the fact of her marriage; not the name of her husband.
Driven to bay by such an opponent, she assumed an air wholly unnatural to her—one of cynical effrontery.
‘You had better say what you know.’
‘All right. Who was the father of the child born not long ago?’