“I shall take care that Mr. Pennithorne is not mentioned at all,” he said, with a polite bow; but he did not add, “You are a heroic woman and you have saved your husband,” which was the thing poor Mrs. Pen wanted to support her. She put back her telegram in her pocket very humbly, and rose up, feeling herself more a culprit than a heroine, to go away. At this moment Lady Stanton herself came in hurriedly. “I heard Mrs. Pennithorne was here,” she said, with a half-apology to her husband, “and I thought I might come and ask what was the last news from Penninghame--if there was any change. I am not interrupting--business?” “No; you will be interested in the news Mrs. Pennithorne brings me,” said Sir Henry, with a certain satisfaction. “Mr. Musgrave’s son John, in whom you have always shown so much interest, Walter Stanton’s murderer----” “No, no,” she said, with a shudder, folding her hands instinctively; “no, no!” The colour went out of her very lips. She was about to hear that he had died. He must have died on the very day she saw him. She listened, looking at her husband all pale and awe-stricken, with a gasp in her throat. --“Is here,” said Sir Henry, deliberately. “Here, where it was done, defying the law.” Mary uttered a great cry of mingled relief and despair. “Then it was he--it was he--and no ghost!” she cried. “What! you knew and never told me? I am not so happy in my wife,” said Sir Henry, with a threatening smile, “as Mr. Pennithorne.” “Oh, was it he--was it he?--no spirit--but himself? God help him,” cried Lady Stanton, with sudden tears. “No, I could not have told you, for I thought it was an apparition. And I would not, Henry,” she added with a kind of generous passion, “I would not, if I could. How could I betray an innocent man?” “Happily Mrs. Pennithorne has saved you the trouble,” he said, getting up impatiently from his seat. He resented his wife’s silence, but he scorned the other woman who had brought him the news. “Do not let me disturb you, ladies, but this is too important for delay. The warrant must be out to-night. I trust to your honour, or I might arrest you both,” he said with a sneer--“two fair prisoners--lest you should warn the man and defeat justice again.” “Henry, you are not going to arrest him--to _arrest_ him--after what I told you? I told you that Geoff----” “Geoff! send Geoff to your nursery, to play with your children, Lady Stanton,” he cried, in rising wrath, “rather than make a puppet of him to carry out your own ideas. I have had enough of boys’ nonsense and women’s. Go to your tea-table, my lady, and leave me to manage my own concerns.” Then Lady Stanton--was it not natural?--with a white, self-contained passion, turned upon the other commonplace woman by her side, who stood trembling before the angry man, yet siding with him in her heart, as such women do.