Peg did not answer. She stood looking out of the window with moody eyes, and then she said abruptly:
"I hate Scammel as Scammel, but—there's something about Nicholas Forrester, as Nicholas Forrester——" she paused. "Faith, do you know what I think?"
Faith shook her head. She was always tremendously influenced by Peg; she waited with breathless eagerness now for her words.
Peg fell into her favourite pose; hands on hips, head a little awry. "Well, I think that unless you're a little fool you'll do as he tells you," she said.
Faith stared at her friend with incredulous eyes. She had counted on her to the uttermost; she could not believe that at the eleventh hour Peg would fail her like this.
"Do as he tells me!" she gasped, helplessly. "After all you have said! Oh, what has happened to change you so! I thought you were my friend."
"You know I am," Peg said calmly. "Perhaps never more than I am now when I tell you to go back to him. What's the good of holding out? He's stronger than you, and the law's on his side."
The last was a phrase culled from one of her favourite novelettes, and she thought it applied admirably. If the truth must be told she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She considered this story of Faith's as good as anything that had been written and printed and sold by the thousand. Forrester was a very good type of hero, and Faith quite the timid, shrinking heroine beloved of the novelist. As yet she had not quite assigned a part to herself, but Peg had her head screwed on the right way, and she had no intention of breaking her friendship with Faith no matter what happened, or of letting her drift out of her life.
She went on in her clear, emphatic way.
"He's rich! He'll give you everything you want! He's fond of you, and the twins love him! What more do you want? Let the past be wiped out; that's what I say."