“I think you have either made a mistake or been deceived. Do you believe it yourself? What are you going to do.”
Ferrers was nonplussed. He had disobeyed the Mirza’s injunction, and spoken without waiting for the further evidence promised him. He might have put himself into a very awkward position if Penelope should tell any one of what he had said, and he decided to temporise.
“Of course I should never think of saying anything about it. As you say, it’s a case in which one can’t take seeing as believing. You won’t say anything about it, of course?”
“Is it likely?” demanded Penelope indignantly. Ferrers surveyed her with growing interest, and became suddenly sorry for himself.
“You flare up if any one says a word against the Chief, and yet you believed a whole string of accusations against me, simply on Lady Haigh’s word,” he said.
“I thought you acknowledged they were true? At any rate, you did not value my opinion of you sufficiently to take a single step to justify yourself.”
“What was the good? You were prejudiced against me. If you had cared for me enough to give me a chance, it would have been different, but I saw you didn’t, so I set you free.”
“And bound me again the next morning.”
“I had seen you by that time, and I couldn’t let you go. But what sort of life have you led me since—keeping me at arm’s-length all these months? Surely you might have been a little kinder——” Ferrers stopped abruptly, for there was something like scorn in Penelope’s eyes. “The fact is, you don’t care a scrap for me,” he broke out angrily.
“Why should I?” asked Penelope.