She bit her lip. I could see that it had never crossed her mind, that, being her husband’s friend, I might lay bare the truth to him and expose the fact that Richard Keene and Mr Smeeton were one and the same.
“Ah! So you intend to give me away?” she remarked, with a quick shrug of the shoulders.
“I have no wish to do anything that will tend to cause a breach between you and your husband,” I answered. “I merely say that I intend to stand as Lolita’s friend, and to-night I shall go north, see her, and explain all I know. She will be interested, no doubt, to hear that a friend of your pre-matrimonial days is here as your husband’s guest.”
“Then you’re going to tell her?” she asked with a quick start, and I saw by the way her eyebrows had contracted that she was devising some plan to counteract my intentions.
“I shall act just as I think proper, Lady Stanchester,” I responded. “In this affair I have the good name of only one person to consider—the person whom you declare it is absurd for me to regard with affection.”
“And so you mean to place me in a very invidious position by telling tales to everybody?” she exclaimed with a supercilious smile. “Well,” she added, “go up to Scotland and see her, if you like. Tell her whatever you think proper; it will be all the same to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I shall still retain the knowledge which I hold, and she cannot—she will not dare to—do anything to injure me. If she does, Mr Woodhouse—if she does—then I’ll speak the truth—a truth that will astound you, and cause you to regret that you ever interfered in my affairs, or ever sought to befriend a woman guilty of a crime.”
“Guilty of a crime!” I echoed. “What crime do you allege against Lady Lolita?”
She merely laughed triumphantly in my face.