She had turned her shoulder to him so that he should not see her face.
“I know. I know now,” she said softly. Then after a pause she added the question: “And you? What part has your lordship had in this--that you should incriminate yourself with us?”
“My part?” Again he hesitated, then plunged recklessly on, as men do when determined to perform a thing they fear. “If I understood him aright, if he understood aright, himself, my part, though entirely passive, was none the less effective. I implore you to observe that I but report his own words. I say nothing for myself.” His lordship's unusual nervousness was steadily increasing. “He thought, then--so he told me--that my presence here had contributed to his inability to redeem himself in your sight; and unless he were so redeemed, then wa
