'Sit down,' he said quickly, 'and tell me what happened. Were you able to make any impression on his mind?'
But as she sank back into her chair she answered vaguely, and her head fell forward on her breast. 'You ask me what happened?' She waited a moment, and then added, with what seemed a cry: 'He said, "The woman tempts me, and I shall eat!"'
'I do not think that he can have said that to you,' said Wantley gently. 'Think again. Try and remember exactly what he did say.'
'It was tantamount to that,' she answered, lifting her head and looking at him fixedly. 'He—he admitted I spoke the truth, yet declared he owed himself to her.' She hesitated, then whispered: 'I warned him of his way, he took no heed, he died in his iniquity, and his blood will not be required of mine hand.'
Even before she had uttered these last words an awful suspicion, a sick dread, had forced itself on Wantley's mind. He passed his hand over his face, afraid lest she should see written there his fear—indeed, his all but knowledge—of what she had done.
There was but a moment to make up his mind what he should say and what he should do. On his present action much might depend. In any case, he must soothe her, restore her to calmness. And so, 'We must now think,' he said authoritatively, 'of Penelope.' He waited a moment, and then repeated again the one word, 'Penelope.'
Lady Wantley's mouth quivered for the first time, and her eyes contracted with a look of suffering.
But he did not give her time to speak. 'No one knows—no one must know, for the sake of Penelope.'
Slowly she bent her head in assent, and he went on, in a low, warning voice. 'If you say a word—I mean of what has just taken place—the truth concerning Penelope and Sir George Downing will become known to all men.' Half unconsciously Wantley adapted the phraseology likely to reach most bindingly the over-excited, distraught brain of the woman over whose figure he was bending, into whose face he was gazing so searchingly.
He felt every moment to be precious, to be big with hideous possibilities, but he feared to leave her—feared to go before he felt quite sure he had made her understand that her daughter's reputation was bound to suffer, if she—Lady Wantley—in any way imperilled or incriminated herself.