Anne Purcell turned on the window-seat to look at him, and then covered her face with her hand.
“She said that the stain is still there. And it is—”
“Fiddle-faddle! What of that, Nan?” And the evil spirit in him flashed out fiercely. “The girl has cornered us. It is no time for whimpering.”
He recovered his serene and cynical poise almost instantly, and, putting two fingers in the pocket of his embroidered vest, drew out the curb of gold with its knot of pearls.
“This little thing came very near ending everything. I shall give it no second chance. Like the easy fool I am I put that cloak away and forgot it, never suspecting that it had left such a clew behind. Jack turned it out of an old chest when he came home shirtless from sea, and wore it that night at Hortense’s. It was only when we got home that I noticed the thing, and talked him into surrendering it. She must have cross-questioned him. And, by the prophets of Israel, Jack was near having a bullet in his heart! She said she told him nothing. God grant that’s true. Jack’s a man with a tight mouth and a kind of grimness that sails straight in the face of a storm.”
He paused, staring hard at the flame of one of the candles, and tossing the chain up and down in his palm.
“What are you going to do, Stephen?”
“Do?” And his face darkened, although so close to the light. “Keep the Spanish fury out of danger. What can you desire—”
She stretched out an arm to him, her face rigid with dread.
“No, not again, Stephen. I cannot bear it—I will not—”