He stopped to cough, then looked out of the window, and softly whistled to himself. Lettice, meanwhile, cast about hastily in her mind for the possible bearing of what her brother might have to say. She was about to take advantage of his blunder, and decline to hear anything further; but for more than one reason which immediately occurred to her, she thought that it would be better to let him speak.
"I do not think you could have any ground for supposing that such a subject would be specially painful to me; but never mind that. What were you going to say?"
Now it was Sydney's turn to be up in arms, for he felt sure that Lettice was acting a part.
"What I know for a fact," he said, "is that you have seen a good deal of Mr. Walcott during the past six months, and that people have gone so far as to remark on your—on his manifest preference for your company. I want to say that there are grave reasons why this should not be permitted to go on."
Lettice bit her lip sharply, but said nothing.
"Do you know," Sydney continued, becoming solemn again as he prepared to hurl his thunderbolts, "that Mr. Walcott is a married man?"
"Whether I know it or not, I do not acknowledge your right to ask me the question."
"I ask it by the right of a brother. Do you know that if he is not a married man, he is something infinitely worse? That the last time his wife was seen in his company, they went on a lonely walk together, and he came back again without her?"
"How do you know this?" Lettice asked him faintly. He set down her agitation to the wrong cause, and thought that his design was succeeding.
"I know it from the man who was most intimately connected with Walcott at the time. And I heard it at my club—in the course of the same conversation in which your name was mentioned. Think what that means to me! However, it may not have gone too far if we are careful to avoid this man in future. He does not visit here, of course?"