There was an ominous glare in Honour's eye at the expressed doubt. Mr. Pym did not want a passage-at-arms between the two then, and raised his hand to command silence.
"Did you hear the child's cries, Prance?" he asked. "It is incredible to suppose that he did not cry; and yet no one seems to have heard him."
"You mean when he was on fire, sir?"
"Of course I mean when he was on fire."
"I never heard them, sir. A child could not burn to death without making cries, and desperate cries, but I did not hear them," she continued, more in soliloquy than to the surgeon. "It is an unfortunate thing that no one was within earshot."
Honour looked keenly at her from her swollen eyes. Mr. Pym spoke carelessly.
"By the way, you were in the recess, Prance, just about the time. Did you neither see nor hear anything then?"
"In the recess, sir?" rejoined Prance, turning her impassive face full on Mr. Pym in apparently the utmost astonishment. But not her eyes. "I was in no recess, sir."
"Yes you were. In that recess; there," pointing to it. "Honour passed you when you were in it."
"It is quite a mistake, sir. What should I do in the recess? If Honour says she saw me there, her sight must have deceived her."