Have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
I was quite taken aback.
I felt my cheeks flushing. I was returning his fierce cold gaze with a
stupid stare, and remained dumb.
'Yes, Maud, you _have_.'
I looked down in silence.
'I _know_ it; but it is right you should answer; have you or have you not?'
I had to clear my voice twice or thrice. There was a kind of spasm in my
throat.
'I am trying to recollect,' I said at last.
'_Do_ recollect,' he replied imperiously.
There was a little interval of silence. I would have given the world to be,
on any conditions, anywhere else in the world.
'Surely, Maud, you don't wish to deceive your guardian? Come, the question
is a plain one, and I know the truth already. I ask you again--have you
ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
'Lady Knollys,' I said, half articulately,' speaks very freely, and often
half in jest; but,' I continued, observing something menacing in his face,
'I have heard her express disapprobation of some things you have done.'
'Come, Maud,' he continued, in a stern, though still a low key, 'did she
not insinuate that charge--then, I suppose, in a state of incubation,
the other day presented here full-fledged, with beak and claws, by that
scheming apothecary--the statement that I was defrauding you by cutting
down timber upon the grounds?'
'She certainly did mention the circumstance; but she also argued that it
might have been through ignorance of the extent of your rights.
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