"Is it!" she retorted. "You cannot stay on here, his companion. You cannot, Anne Hereford."
"I will! Whether with him as a companion or without him is not of any moment—he will not eat me. But I do not quit Chandos until my legitimate plans call me away."
In point of fact I had nowhere to go to; but I did not say that. All this, and her assumption of reading my love, drove me into a perfect fit of anger.
Mrs. Penn paused, seemingly in deliberation, and when she next spoke it was in a whisper.
"Has he given you any hint of what the dark cloud is that hangs over Chandos? Of the—the crime that was committed?"
"No."
"It was a very fearful crime: the greatest social crime forbidden in the Decalogue. When the police rode up here the other night I thought they had come for him. I know Mr. Chandos thought it."
"For whom?"
"For Mrs. Chandos's husband," she answered, in a sharp, irascible tone. "Why do you make me repeat it?"
At least I thought she need not repeat the word "husband" in my ears.