Then she remembered her promise to take home some flowers, and she went to the bank, plucking as many as she could find. After which she turned homewards.
Not far from the street in which the Craggs lived, as she was passing along a lane between street and hedge, the doctor drove up in his gig. Seeing Pattie, he pulled the rein, stopped, and bent over to speak to her.
"Had a good walk? You don't look much the better for it."
"But I have done as you told me."
"What has happened? Anything unpleasant?"
Pattie hesitated. Should she tell him? He would be certain to hear the tale now spreading through Putworth.
"Eh? What is it?"
"Only—something that was said to me," she replied with difficulty. "Mr. May, if you are told a story about my father, I want you not to believe it, please, too quickly. Not without more proof than you can have from Putworth people."
The doctor nodded. Pattie wondered—had he already heard it? She could have supposed so from his look.
"It is not a true tale. I—know who has started it. There was a great trouble. That was why we left our home and came here. But my father did not do the thing he was accused of. He never could have done it; and if you had known him, you would say the same. If the story gets to you, please ask Mr. Cragg about it. Mr. Cragg knows more than anybody else in Putworth."