CHAPTER XX 273
" You have passed a strange night, Jane."
" Yes, sir."
" And it has made you look pale-- were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?"
" I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room."
" But I had fastened the door-- I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb-- my pet lamb-- so near a wolf ' s den, unguarded: you were safe."
" Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?"
" Oh yes! don ' t trouble your head about her-- put the thing out of your thoughts."
" Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays." " Never fear-- I will take care of myself." " Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?"
" I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day."
" But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure you."
" Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me-- but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness."