'You think that I used my position in this house, took advantage of my nearness to Mr. Pennycomequick, to induce him to commit an injustice?'
Philip bowed stiffly.
'You charge me with the grossest breach of honour, with wicked ingratitude to the man who has been to me as a father?'
'We do not accuse you personally,' said Lambert, who thought that, as he would have expressed it, his cousin and mother were 'down on the girl too hard,' 'but we think it awfully queer that uncle should have made such a will. Your mother, for instance——'
'My mother is as incapable of such meanness as myself,' said Salome. 'To such as can think of me so basely, no justification I could make would be of any avail. With your leave——'
She bowed, and now white as ivory, with spots of fire in her temples, she swept out of the room.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT NEXT?
What was to be done?
Mrs. Sidebottom was the first to see what was to be done.