"Yes—yes." She wiped her eyes. "Do smoke, James—I like it."
"Oh, you dear liar," he said. "And so it was Grey?"
She looked up. "Yes, George Grey; but, James, he did not know how much we liked Josiah nor how good he had been to me, and how he got hurt when he stopped Leila's pony. He was sorry—but it was too late—oh, James!—you will not—oh, you will not—"
"Will not what, dear?" Penhallow was disgusted. A guest entertained in his own house to become a detective of an escaped slave in Westways, at his very gate! "My charity, Ann, hardly covers this kind of sin against the decencies of life. But I wish to hear all of it. Now, who betrayed the man—who told Grey?"
"I am sorry to say that it was Peter Lamb who first mentioned Josiah to George Grey as a runaway. When he spoke of his lost fingers, George was led to suspect who Josiah really was. Then he saw him, and as soon as he was sure, he wrote to a Mr. Woodburn, who was Josiah's old owner."
"I suppose he recognized Josiah readily?"
"Yes, he had been a servant of George's friend, Mr. Woodburn, and George says he was a man indulgently treated and much trusted."
"I infer from what I learned to-day that George told you all this and had already seen Swallow, so that the trap was set and Mr. Woodburn was to arrive. Did George imagine you would warn my poor barber—"
"But I—I didn't—I mean—I let John hear about it—and he told Josiah."
He listened. Here was another Mrs. Ann. There was in Ann at times a bewildering childlike simplicity with remarkable intelligence—a combination to be found in some of the nobler types of womanhood. He made no remark upon her way of betraying the trust implied in George Grey's commonplace confession.