'Yes, indeed, poor Mr. Winfrith! But in a way the worst for him was yet to come. One winter day a lawyer's clerk came down to Shagisham House to tell the housekeeper and Mrs. Mason's attendants that their master was dead. He had died of typhoid fever at Pisa, leaving no will, and having made no arrangements either for his own wife, or for the lady who, in Italy, had of course passed as his wife. Well, Mr. Winfrith started off that same night for Pisa, and about a fortnight later he brought Mrs. Winfrith back to Shagisham.' Penelope waited awhile, but Cecily made no comment. 'For a time,' Mrs. Robinson went on, 'I believe they lived like lepers. The farmers made it an excuse to drop coming to church, and only one woman belonging to their own class ever went near them.' 'I know who that was,' said Cecily, breaking her long silence--'at least, I think it must have been your mother.' 'Yes,' said Penelope, 'yes, it was my mother. How clever of you to guess! Mamma used to go and see her regularly. And one day, finding how unhappy the poor woman seemed to be, she asked my father to allow her to ask her to come and stay at Monk's Eype. Very characteristically, as I think, he let mamma have her way in the matter; but during Mrs. Winfrith's visit he himself went away, otherwise people might have thought that he had condoned her behaviour.' She paused for a moment. 'Something so strange happened during that first stay of Mrs. Winfrith's at Monk's Eype. Mamma found out, or rather Mrs. Winfrith confided to her, that she had fallen in love, rather late in the day, with Mr. Winfrith, and that she could not bear the gentle, cold, distant way in which he treated her. Then mamma did what I have always thought was a very brave thing. She went over to Shagisham, all by herself, and spoke to him, telling him that if he had really forgiven his wife he ought to treat her differently.' 'And then?' asked Cecily. 'And then'--Penelope very shortly ended the story--'she--mamma, I mean--persuaded him to go away for six months with Mrs. Winfrith. They spent the time in America, where her brother was living as attaché to the British Legation. After that they came home, and about five years before I made my appearance, David was born.' 'And Mrs. Mason?' asked Cecily.