But, to all their questioning, in which indeed it seemed the rector for the most part voiced Sir David’s eagerness, beyond the capital fact of the discovery of the truant, Madam Tutterville could give them but little information concerning Ellinor herself; none as to her plans. She had been ill. She was well again. She looked pale, but not sickly; was very silent; refused to come back to the rectory; was in no want, and had prospect of employment. What work and where, she avoided telling. The utmost Madam Tutterville had been able to extract from her was the solemn promise not to leave Bath without further communicating with her; and this was on the understanding that Madam Tutterville would then take Barnaby into the rectory—since it was now safe to do so.
“And did she ever speak of David?” asked the reverend Horatio, his eye just blinking across to the latter’s white face.
“Oh, she asked me how he was ... just at the end. I was actually on the doorstep when she caught me by the arm: ‘How is David, aunt?’” quoth she.
Madam Tuttervile’s tone expressed the mystification which something singular in her niece’s manner seemed to have evoked.
“I told her he was away in London. Believing, of course, that you were still there, David. And I told her how well you are. What wonderful accounts we had to give of you. Quite, quite your old self, before—Ah!”
She broke off a little disconcerted at the allusions to which her tongue was drifting.
“And Ellinor said?” inquired the parson gently, this time keeping his gaze away from his friend’s face.
“Ellinor!” The lady’s visage became wrinkled into fresh lines of perplexity. “Poor dear child! I fear she is very weak and nervous still. ‘I am so glad, so glad!’ she said, that was all.... But, do you know, I verily believe that, as she closed the door on me, I heard her sob. I had it in my heart to go back but, dear Horatio, she had pushed the bolt!”
Madam Tutterville turned from her contemplation of the doctor’s determinedly impassive features to stare at David. And whatever she then saw, it seemed all at once to procure her the liveliest, yet the most agreeable, surprise. On the verge of an outcry, she checked herself, nodded, pursed her lips, rolled an eye of weighty meaning at her lord, and rising, remarked with an air of abnormal detachment, that it was getting late and she had had a vast of fatigue.
The parson, with a gesture of acquiescence, turned to David.