"Yes," said the Rector. "I was surprised that it should all have been over so quickly. How is your foot this morning, Edward?"
"Oh, all right. At least, it isn't all right. I had a horrible night—never slept a wink. I've got the papers here. The woman ought to have got penal servitude. Yes, it was over quickly. It was all as plain as possible, and I'm glad she did herself no good by her monstrous lies. The gross impudence of it! Evidently she'll stick at nothing. But I forgot. You haven't seen the evidence. Here, read this! Would it be believed that she could have put up such a defence? That bit there!"
The Rector deliberately fixed a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on to his nose, and took the paper, looking up occasionally from his reading as his brother interjected remarks, which interrupted but did not seem to irritate him.
"I don't quite understand, Edward," he said, when he had finished the passage to which his attention had been drawn. "She says the pearls she sold were given to her by somebody, but the name is not mentioned. Apparently there was a wrangle about it."
"Oh, my dear Tom," said the Squire, "can't you see what it all means? It is as plain as the nose on your face. A wicked, baseless scandal."
The Rector returned to the newspaper, but his air of bewilderment remained.
"Oh well," said the Squire with an impatient glance at him. "You don't live in the world where these things are talked about. I don't either, thank God. But one hears things. This infamous woman has posed as the—the friend—the mistress—yes, actually wanted it to be thought that she was the mistress, of—— No, I'm not going to say it; I won't sully my lips, or put ideas into your head. It's untrue, absolutely untrue, and people in that position are defenceless. She ought not to bring in their names even in idle talk. I'm very glad indeed that there was a strong stand made in the court."
The Rector had re-read the passage, and looked up with a slight flush on his cheeks—almost the look that an innocent girl might have shown if some shameful suggestion had come home to her. "It is not——" he hazarded.
"Oh, not here," the Squire took him up. "Paris. But it is all the more abominable. I don't believe a word of it. And even if it were true—— But is it a likely story?"
"I hope not," said the Rector gravely.