"Can you not remind her that she sold the child on the condition that she would never trouble about him, or seek to know where he might be living?"
"No, I cannot. She has seen her son; she knows who he is; she wants your acknowledgment. Give her that, and, I don't know, in fact, what will happen afterwards."
Lady Woodroffe sat down and sighed heavily. "Be it so," she said. "You will go on; you will do your worst."
Richard Woodroffe regarded her with a sense of pity, and even of respect. The woman had supported her position by a succession of shameless lies; she was now virtually confessing to him that they were lies. But she had so much to lose—her great position among religious and charitable people, her reputation, the respect which her blameless life and her great abilities had won for her. All these things were threatened.
"Madam," he said, his face full of emotion, "if it were only your son to be thought of, I would retire. But there is this poor lady, who is only kept alive, I believe, by the hope and belief that her son will be restored to her. Believe me, if I may speak of pity for you——"
"Pity?" She sprang to her feet with fire and fury in her cheeks and eyes. It is, happily, the rarest thing in the world to see a woman—I mean a woman of culture—overmastered by passion. Yet it lies there; it is always possible. In the heart of the meekest maiden, the most self-governed and most highly bred woman, there lies hidden the tigress, the fish-wife, the scold, the shrew. Formerly, whenever women were gathered together, they quarrelled; whenever they quarrelled, they fought—sometimes with fists, cudgels, brooms, chairs, sometimes with tongues. Men were so horribly frightened by the scolding wife, that they ducked her, put her in a cage, carried her round in a cart. The little word "pity" was the last drop in the cup. Lady Woodroffe raged and stormed at the unfortunate Richard. For the time her mind was beyond control; afterwards, he remembered that such a fit of passion showed the tension of her mind. He made no reply. When her torrent of words and threats was exhausted, she threw herself into her chair, and buried her face in her hands.
Then Richard quietly withdrew.