"What in the world for?" he demanded. "We are very comfortable here, Clara; and, between ourselves, it is a help to Penelope."
"We must go back. I cannot stay."
"But why? Where's the motive?"
She drew her shawl closely round her as if she shivered again, and spoke the next words with a jerk, for to get them out required an effort of pain. What it had taken to nerve her to this task so far, she alone knew.
"What is there between you and Lady Ellis?"
"Between me and Lady Ellis!" echoed Mr. Lake, with all the carelessness in life. "Nothing at all. What should there be?"
She bent towards him and whispered.
"Which is it--which is it to be, I or she?"
"To be--for what?" rejoined Mr. Lake, really at a loss.
"Which of us is it that you love?" she wailed forth; and indeed the tone of her voice could be called little else than a wail.