(She remembered with pride her own keenness of sight. "Didn't I tell Miss Stirling that there was something mysterious in the woman— something underneath in her history? I knew it! was sure of it! I couldn't be mistaken." She determined that, so soon as she should return home, she would thoroughly investigate the matter.)
Maurice was speaking again.
"Shall we go a little farther? Can you spare the time?"
"I can spare it,"—laughing. "But we must take care. Mrs. Brutt is awfully suspicious."
"It is not her concern."
("Thanks!"—voicelessly murmured the listener.)
"Only, if once she begins really to suspect, she will make frightful mischief, Dick."
"Well, we won't be more than half-an-hour. Perhaps she has forced an entry at last, and has been all this time entertaining them at the châlet. Imagine Pressford's state of mind!"
Another merry laugh from Doris, and the voices slowly receded. Mrs. Brutt waited, in a state of dire impatience, till she felt that she might venture out. Nobody was within sight. She peered in all directions, gliding with caution, and keeping the châlet between herself and the path they had followed. Her heart beat unpleasantly fast; for, despite her theory that she had every right to listen, the last thing she wished was to have her presence discovered.
Not till she regained the main road did she breathe freely. She walked some way down it, and took a seat by the roadside. The beauty of the scene was lost upon her. She had other things to think about.