“Have you never seen the child since you gave her to the lady?”
Mrs. Sowler set down her glass, just as she was raising it to her lips. Jervy paused, thunderstruck, in the act of lighting a second cigar.
“Her?” Mrs. Sowler repeated slowly, her eyes fixed on Phoebe with a lowering expression of suspicion and surprise. “Her?” She turned to Jervy. “Did you ask me if the child was a girl or a boy?”
“I never even thought of it,” Jervy replied.
“Did I happen to say it myself, without being asked?”
Jervy deliberately abandoned Phoebe to the implacable old wretch, before whom she had betrayed herself. It was the only likely way of forcing the girl to confess everything. “No,” he answered; “you never said it without being asked.”
Mrs. Sowler turned once more to Phoebe. “How do you know the child was a girl?” she inquired.
Phoebe trembled, and said nothing. She sat with her head down, and her hands, fast clasped together, resting on her lap.
“Might I ask, if you please,” Mrs. Sowler proceeded, with a ferocious assumption of courtesy, “how old you are, miss? You’re young enough and pretty enough not to mind answering to your age, I’m sure.”
Even Jervy’s villainous experience of the world failed to forewarn him of what was coming. Phoebe, it is needless to say, instantly fell into the trap.