“I will tell you more,” said Penelope suddenly.
“You won’t always be in the house to stare at me as Clay would do, and as Mabel and Annie would do, thinking that perhaps I’d do it again, and always taunting me with it. Oh, no, you won’t be there.”
“Only in spirit, and my spirit will be very tender, and full of love to you.”
“Love to me?” said Pen.
“Of course, Penelope. Can you doubt it?”
Penelope could not look in those eyes, which were full of matchless love, eyes such as she had never before encountered. She burst into a torrent of tears, struggled with her emotions, and finally laid her curly head with its wealth of red-gold hair on Miss St. Just’s white dress. The slender hand touched the head once or twice, but Pen was allowed to cry until the pain in her heart was eased a little.
“It was this way,” she said, and then she told her story.
“I spoke to Jim first, I was driven to it, and—and Nesta was so persistent. But I don’t want to excuse myself.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Angela, “for of course you have no excuse.”
Her words were perfectly gentle, perfectly firm. Pen looked up at her.