"My reputation!" he repeated, puzzled. "What has that to do with it?"
"Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Shankland and Mrs. Sanford could tell you," she retorted with a scornful smile.
He was silent. Wrongly, it is true, but with the weight of a certainty, it flashed upon him that here was the key to Patty's sudden hatred. He turned sick at the thought of the gossip she must have heard; then, with a quick throb of pride, he raised his head in wonder that the woman he loved could believe this of him. He rose at once, and stepped towards the door.
"If you had hinted at your business," he said, "it would have saved my coming over. Whatever cause you may have to be sensitive in regard to Mrs. Smithers, I certainly have none; and you will allow, I think, that the stone cottage belongs to me."
Nor could Miss Mullen's persuasions move him. The thrust she had given his pride, thinking thereby the more surely to accomplish her object, had turned against her. He felt that to send away the woman who had become his tenant would appear an acknowledgment of the truth of the slander against him.
But it was with a heavy heart that he rode homewards.