"Major Carroll would have suspected him also had he ever met him."
"As it happens, my husband has met him. It was at one of our receptions; early in the evening, I think, before you came."
"And he said nothing?"
"Nothing."
"I must go on in any case," said Owen; "I can do no otherwise. For it is not for my own sake I am speaking—"
"Are you sure of that?" said his hostess, interrupting him again without ceremony. This time her tone had an amusement in it, an amusement not unmixed with sarcasm.
"I should do it just the same though I were on the eve of leaving Far Edgerley forever, never expecting to see any of you again," he answered, with some heat.
"It could hardly be a final parting, even then; for the world is not so large as you suppose, Mr. Owen. It hardly seems necessary, on the whole, to be so tragic," answered the lady, again adjusting the ruffle of her overskirt, and laughing a little.
Owen was bewildered. He had thought that he knew her so well, he had thought that she was of all his parish his best and kindest friend; yet there she sat, within three feet of him, looking at him mockingly, turning all his earnest words into ridicule, laughing at him.
He was no match for her in little sarcasms, and he was in no mood for that kind of warfare. He said no more about himself and his feelings; he simply gave her a plain outline of the facts which had recently come into his possession.