'What made me think of it?' she repeated violently. 'Why, I _know_ she's there! She wasn't likely to keep away any longer! Oh, my lady, how is it you've not seen, that you haven't come to understand, how it is with her? I should have thought that anyone who cared for her, and who isn't blind, must surely know, know that----' Mrs. Mote's voice fell almost to a whisper as she added, throwing out her hands: 'She _do_ like him; it's no good my saying anything else! Why didn't his lordship let her have Master David? He was the one for her; she's never liked anyone so well till just now.' Then the speaker turned and nervously struck a match, lighting one of two tall candles standing on the chest of drawers behind her. Lady Wantley's face looked very grey and drawn in the yellow light, but it was set in stern lines. 'Hush!' she said: 'you forget yourself, Motey,' and you are making a great mistake. If you refer to Sir George Downing'--she brought out the name with a certain effort--'you cannot be aware of what is known quite well to your mistress, for she herself told me that he is married. His wife, who is an American lady, once came to see your master.' There was a long silence. Lady Wantley was waiting for the other to make some sign of submission, but the old servant only gave the woman who had been for so many years her own mistress a quick, furtive look, full of mingled pity and contempt, of fierce personal distress and impatience. 'Were they together then?' she said at last, and with apparent inconsequence she added; 'Does your ladyship remember Mrs. Winfrith, and what happened to her?' Lady Wantley deigned no answer to Motey's questions. 'I know that you love my daughter,' she said slowly, almost reluctantly; but the servant, with a quick movement, shrank back, and her look, her gesture, forbade the other--the more fortunate woman who had borne the child Motey loved so well--to intrude on the nurse's relation to that child. 'Love her!' Motey was repeating to herself, though no words passed her lips, 'why, I'd give my body and soul for her, which is more than you would do!' But Mrs. Mote mis-estimated the mother-instinct in the woman who was now standing opposite to her. Then, quickly, vehemently, the old nurse told of what she knew and what she feared with so great a dread, and the story which Lady Wantley heard, still standing, in dead silence, though it might have seemed very unconvincing to a lawyer, brought absolute conviction to Penelope's mother.