"If one could only be always sure!" she muttered within the door, shaking off a little shower. "And if only I need not hurt him!"
With an effort she braced herself up, tossed aside the shawl, and entered the schoolroom.
"You've kept me waiting a jolly time, and no mistake," averred Lance. "Just see, Ethel, how in the world am I to make out all this French gibberish?"
Ethel sat down for an hour of patient work, going steadily into such explanations as Lance needed, and making herself very clear. But all the while she never ceased to see a pair of dark eyes, full of pain at the touch of her cold fingers.
Did he care? Yes, no doubt; they were such old friends. Only that—only friends! Nothing else could ever be, for Nigel did not wish it.
Ethel's note to Mr. Carden-Cox, with its enclosure, left Newton Bury on Tuesday evening, just too late for the post Ethel had meant to catch; this fact not having been discovered by her. Consequently the note did not reach Burrside until the midday post, one half-hour after Mr. Carden-Cox had, under a sudden impulse, quitted his blissful solitude for the cares of Newton Bury.
Mrs. Simmons was out when the note arrived, and the little lodging-house maid put it thoughtlessly on a side-table, saying nothing to anybody. There it lay till late the same evening, when Mrs. Simmons came across it, at once instituting inquiries.
"And been there this whole day, and not a soul knowing!" exclaimed Mrs. Simmons. "And Mr. Carden-Cox that particular about his letters, as he'd be fit to cut your head off if the post was five minutes behind-hand, and you knowing of it, Betsy Jane, and never paying no heed! You're the trouble of my life, and that's what you are, never thinking nor caring! And you'll put on your hat this minute, and go straight off to the post, you will, for all it's too late, for I wouldn't keep that there hemberlope in this house another hour, no, not if I was paid for it, and Mr. Carden-Cox so mortial particular!"
Betsy Jane was not likely to pay Mrs. Simmons out of her small earnings, neither did she attempt to defend herself. She only drooped her lower lip, half deplorably, half in sullenness, and endured the harangue: for after all, what could she have pleaded except forgetfulness? And everybody agrees with everybody that to forget is no excuse at all, because one never ought to forget. Betsy Jane put on her hat, of course, and went to the post; and the poor little note wandered off once more missing again the evening post, and again arriving not far from midday.
The return of Mr. Carden-Cox had become known, and Nigel had speedily found his way to Mr. Carden-Cox's house. When Ethel's note, with half-a-dozen other epistles, was handed to Mr. Carden-Cox on a silver waiter, Nigel was seated opposite to him, speaking.