"Oh—er—why—why no doubt it's—it's only a fancy of Mina Zabriska's."
"A very queer fancy," said Janie Iver coldly. It was really a little annoying that old Mr Neeld should be the person wanted at Blent.
"I'll drive you over," Bob kindly volunteered.
"Er—thank you, Broadley, but she asks me to come alone."
"Well, I'm hanged!" muttered Bob, who had seen a chance of being in at the death.
They were coming straight down to Blent. That fact assumed an important place in Neeld's review of the situation. And his presence was requested. He put these two things together. They must mean that the secret was to be told that evening at Blent, and that he was to be vouched as evidence, if by chance Cecily asked for it. On the very day of the wedding the truth was to be revealed. In ignorance, perhaps in her own despite, she had been made in reality what she had conceived herself to be; to-day she was Lady Tristram in law. Now she was to be told. Neeld saw the choice that would be laid before her, and, at the same time, the use that had been made of his silence. He fell into a sore puzzle. Yes, Harry could play a deep game when he chose.
"It's quite impossible to justify either the use he's made of me or the way he's treated her," he concluded sadly. "I shall speak very seriously to him about it." But he knew that the serious speaking, however comforting it might be to himself as a protest, would fall very lightly on Harry Tristram's ears; their listening would be for the verdict of another voice.
"Do you think Disney will repeat his offer—will give him a chance of reconsidering now?" asked Iver, who had heard of that affair from Lord Southend.
"I'm sure he wouldn't accept anything," Neeld an
swered with remarkable promptitude and conviction. It was a luxury to find an opportunity of speaking the truth.