“And do you deny the charge that they make against you?”
“I do not recognize your right to question me,” Gaunt answered coldly, but he was eagerly looking down at his wife, and her hand still rested in his.
“Perhaps I had better tell you the whole story,” he began, addressing himself to Lady Mildred.
The facts were soon told, and he suppressed nothing except the vow that he had made, but when he spoke of the interview at which Edward Drake had been present, and the subsequent sending of the check to the King’s Hospital Fund, the look of distress vanished from his wife’s face.
“You did not benefit from it, John. Of course you were very wrong in the first place, but——”
“Is that the way you look at it, Mildred? Then you have indeed changed,” Lord Lynton cried harshly. “Cannot you understand that Gaunt has been found out in a dishonorable act? By this time all London will have read the report of the proceedings at the police court, and they will rightly call him a——”
“Silence, Geoffrey!” she cried peremptorily, and her bosom rose and fell quickly. “Perhaps John may have done wrong, and I am sorry, but I do not intend to allow it to affect me. If you wish to remain friends you must be silent.”
Lord Lynton gazed at his sister in wonder.
“Of course, Gaunt may be able to smooth the matter over. It would be advisable to go to the Amanti people at once, and if necessary, pay them handsomely for withdrawing the charge. Then you can get a clever counsel to go to the police court, and say that it is all a mistake. It is only a question of money,” he said with the idea of making the best of the situation.
“I intend to take no step at all, for I cannot deny its truth,” Gaunt answered, and he felt his wife’s hand tremble slightly.