The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

At last, roughly interrupting him, she turned on him and spoke, while he listened silently, filled with increasing amazement and distress.

'Listen!' she cried, and there was no horror, no anguish, only infinite scorn and anger, in her voice. 'You ask me to forgive you. But understand that I will never forgive you! You have done an utterly unwarrantable thing. Is it possible that you really believed that any interference or effort on your part could separate two such people as Sir George Downing and myself? How little you know me! how little you can understand what the effect of such conduct as yours must be! Listen!'

She feared he was about to speak, and held up her hand. He was looking fixedly at her, still full of concern and pity, but feeling more collected and cooler before her growing excitement.

'No, listen! I am quite calm, quite reasonable; but I want you to realize what you have done—what your interference will bring about.' She paused, then continued, speaking in low, quick tones: 'I confess there was a moment last night when I wavered, when I wondered whether, after all, I was justified in only considering myself and—and—him. But now? Shall I tell you what I have made up my mind to do during the last few minutes? No—don't speak to me yet—I will listen with what patience I can after you have heard what I have to say. I mean to go to town to-night with Sir George Downing—I know he has not left; I know you have not yet driven him away. If necessary, I shall thrust my company upon him! Do you suppose it will be hard for me to undo with him any evil you have done?'

Again she paused, again she held up her hand to stay his words. 'If he is going to Mr. Gumberg I shall ask the old man to allow me to come there, in the character of George's'—her voice dropped, but she did not spare Wantley the word—'mistress.'

She added, with a bitter smile: 'Mr. Gumberg is a bachelor; the situation will amuse him, and give him plenty to talk about all the winter! I had meant to leave England as secretly, as quietly, as possible, out of consideration for mamma, and even for you; though I am not ashamed of what I am doing. But now, after this, I shall write and tell certain people of my intention, or, rather, of what I shall have done by the time I write; you will be sorry, you will repent then of what you have done to-day!'

He saw that she was trembling violently, and a look that crossed his face stung her afresh. 'Pray do not feel any concern for me. You will need all your pity for mamma, even a little for yourself, after to-day. But, oh!'—as her hand again closed convulsively over the case which contained her letters, her portrait—'he should not have entrusted these to you! But doubtless he could not help it—how do I know what you said to him?'

'Penelope,' he said desperately, 'you must, and you shall, listen to me! You wrong Sir George Downing, and most cruelly. How could you believe that he, alive, would have let your letters to him go out of his possession? Surely you knew him better than that!'

'I don't understand,' she said, bewildered. But even as she spoke he saw the mortal fear, the beginning of knowledge, coming into her face. He held out his hand, and she took it, groping her way close to him, as a blind woman might have done. 'Tell me what you mean,' she said, 'tell me quickly what you mean.'

But before he could answer there came he sound of tramping feet, of subdued voices. 'Don't look!' he cried hoarsely. 'Penelope, I beg you not to look!' But she pushed him aside, and, holding her head high, with swift, steady feet, passed out through the window to meet the little procession which was advancing slowly, painfully, across the terrace.