“Penelope,” said Sir John, “will you keep my identity secret a while longer?”
“Why, for sure, Mus’ Derwent!” she answered, and then suddenly caught his hand, holding it fast while eyes and voice pleaded anew: “Let be, Sir John! Let blood answer blood, but keep you out of it....”
“Nay, Penelope,” he answered gently, “I would remind you that poor Roger Hobden was my horse-boy years ago and taught me to steal apples——”
“And I bid ye let be!” she whispered passionately. “The evil as they wrought shall foller them as did it! What if they be never dragged to Justice, Roger will be avenged, one day.... I know it, so keep you clear o’ them, sir, for your sake and your dead father’s!”
Sir John was silent awhile then, stooping reverently, raised those old, work-roughened hands that clasped his so eagerly, and touched them with his lips.
“Oh!” she sighed; and feeling how she trembled, he looked up to see her eyes brimming with tears. “Ah, sir,” she whispered, “’tis almost as I were young again an’ the world a better place!”
“Pray heaven it shall be so!” he answered very gravely and, opening the door, followed her down the dark and narrow stair.
CHAPTER XXXI
BEING A CHAPTER OF NO GREAT CONSEQUENCE
My lady, seated between Sir Hector, very conscious of his shirt-sleeves, and Mr. Potter, fresh and assured of himself by reason of his late ablutions, held up the garment she had been mending, and viewed the result of her labours with coldly disparaging eye.