Nadin and the others had not left her more than ten minutes when Henrietta heard his voice under the window. She was still flushed and heated, sore with the things which they had said to her, bruised and battered by their vulgarity and bluster. Indignation still burned in her; and astonishment that they could not see the case as she saw it. The argument in her own mind was clear. They must prove that Walterson had committed this new crime, they must prove that if she betrayed the man she would save the child—and she would speak. Or she would speak if they would undertake to release the man were he not guilty. But short of that, no. She would not turn informer against him, whom she had chosen in her folly—except to save life. What could be more clear, what more fair, what more logical? And was it not monstrous to ask anything beyond this?
She had wrought herself in truth to an almost hysterical stubbornness on the point. The romantic bent that had led her to the verge of ruin still inclined her feelings. Yet when she heard the father’s step approaching along the passage, she trembled. She gazed in terror at the door. The prospect of the father’s tears, the father’s supplication, shook her. She had to say to herself, “I must not tell, I must not! I must not!” as if the repetition of the words would strengthen her under the torture of his appeal. And when he entered, in the fear of what he might say she was before him. She did not look at him, or heed what message his face conveyed—or she had been frozen into silence. But in a panic she rushed on the subject.
“I am sorry, oh, I am so sorry!” she cried, tears in her voice. “I would do it, if I could, I would indeed. But I cannot,” distressfully, “I must not! And I beg you to spare me your reproaches.”
“I have none to make to you,” he said.
It was his tone, rather than his words, which cut her like a whip.
“None!” she cried. “Ah, but you blame me? I am sure you do.”
“I do not blame you,” he replied in the same cold tone. “My business here has nothing to do with reproaches or with blame. I give you fifteen minutes to tell me what you know, and all you know, of the man Walterson’s whereabouts. That told, I have no more to say to you.”
She looked at him as one thunderstruck.
“And if I do not do that,” she murmured, “within fifteen minutes? If I do not tell you?”
“You will go to Appleby gaol,” he said, in the same passionless tone. “To herd with your like, with such women as may be there.” He laid his watch on the table, beside his whip and glove; and he looked not at her, but at it.