The woman beside me turned, and with a supreme courage raised her head and faced the girl.
“Yes, Antoinette, it is I,” she answered.
And then my eyes sought Nick, for Mrs. Temple had faced her son with a movement that was a challenge, yet with a look that questioned, yearned, appealed. He, too, stared, the laughter fading from his eyes, first astonishment, and then anger, growing in them, slowly, surely. I shall never forget him as he stood there (for what seemed an age) recalling one by one the wrongs this woman had done him. She herself had taught him to brook no restraint, to follow impetuously his loves and hates, and endurance in these things was moulded in every line of his finely cut features. And when he spoke it was not to her, but to the girl at his side.
“Do you know who this is?” he said. “Tell me, do you know this woman?”
Mademoiselle de St. Gré did not answer him. She drew near, gently, to Mrs. Temple, whose head was bowed, whose agony I could only guess.
“Mrs. Clive,” she said softly, though her voice was shaken by a prescience, “won't you tell me what has happened? Won't you speak to me—Antoinette?”
The poor lady lifted up her arms, as though to embrace the girl, dropped them despairingly, and turned away.
“Antoinette,” she murmured, “Antoinette!”
For Nick had seized Antoinette by the hand, restraining her.
“You do not know what you are doing?” he cried angrily. “Listen!”