“What of your child?” she said, in the same harsh ringing voice.
“Really, Miss Mullion, my poor girl,” he said, rising, “I fear you are ill.”
“Ill!” she said sharply; “very ill, but not so ill but that I can come to you now and ask for reparation for my wrongs.”
“Ask me, Miss Mullion? Poor soul!” he muttered; “she takes me for Trethick.”
Madge heard his words, and if any spark of love or passion remained for him in her breast, those words crushed it out. The weak girl had indeed become a woman now—a woman and a mother; and if John Tregenna, in a fit of remorse, had asked her then to be his wife, she would have refused, and gone on bearing the burthen of her shame.
“You pitiful, contemptible snake!” she said, speaking now in a low voice that thrilled him through and through. “I am mad, am I, John Tregenna? No, not now. I was mad to listen to and trust you—mad to believe that you would keep your word—mad, if you will, to take upon my poor weak shoulders the sin that was yours more than mine.”
“Miss Mullion!” exclaimed Tregenna, rising. “I must put an end to this painful interview;” and he laid his hand upon the bell.
“Do you wish Mr Chynoweth to hear what I am saying to you—what I intend to say to Rhoda Penwynn to-night when she returns from Truro—what I should have said to her to-day, after I had left you, had she been at home? If so, ring.”
Tregenna showed the first sign of weakness; his hand dropped from the bell, and he started as he heard poor Madge’s bitter laugh, realising more fully now than ever that the enemy in his path, instead of being a weak, helpless girl, had grown into a dangerous woman.
He had made a false step in his defence; but it was too late to retreat, and he kept boldly on.