Then Wantley understood her meaning, and the knowledge that she believed this simple, obvious explanation brought the one touch of comfort, of relief, which he had felt for many hours.
'I think,' he said at length, 'that such a thing as suicide always goes against a man's memory. Personally, I hope it will be put down to an accident. In any case, you must remember that there were many people interested in bringing about his death. I myself can testify that only recently he told me that he knew himself to be in perpetual danger.'
But Penelope was not listening. 'Now that you have told me what I wanted to know, I must ask you to do something for me.' And as he looked at her, startled, she added: 'Nothing of any great consequence. All I ask is, that you to-day, before I go back to the house, will tell Motey and my mother that I cannot, and that I will not, see them for a while. Mamma will not mind—she will understand. I know well enough that Motey betrayed me to her—I knew it the day it happened, and I felt very angry. But now nothing matters. You are to tell Motey from me that if she forces herself on me now it will be the end—I will never have her about me again!'
Penelope spoke angrily, excitedly. As she spoke she clutched her cousin's arm as if to emphasise her words. And Wantley, marvelling, turned to carry out her wish.
CHAPTER XVIII
Christian. But what have you seen?
Men. Seen! Why, the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we also saw there the Hobgoblins, Satyrs and Dragons of the Pit; we heard also in that Valley a continuous Howling and Yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who sat there bound in Affliction and Irons; and over that Valley hung the discouraging clouds of Confusion; Death also doth always spread his wings over it; in a word, it is in every whit dreadful, being utterly without Order.—Bunyan.
I
The last occasion on which Wantley had come to Marston Lydiate had been in order that he might be present at a great audit dinner, and he had felt acutely the unreality, the solemn absurdity, of it all. Those present, his tenants, all knew, and knew that he knew also, that he could never hope to come and live among them.