"How," said Adèle slowly, "did you come by Nobby?"
Painfully distinct, the wraith of Josephine Childe rose up before me, pale and accusing. Fragments of the letter which had offered me the Sealyham re-wrote themselves upon my brain.... It nearly breaks my heart to say so, but I've got to part with Nobby.... I think you'd get on together ... if you'd like to have him. ... And there was nothing in it. It was a case of smoke without fire. But—I could have spared the question just then....
Desperately I related the truth.
"A girl called Josephine Childe gave him to me. She wanted to find a home for him, as she was going overseas."
"Oh."
The silence that followed this non-committal remark was most discomfiting. I had a feeling that the moments were critical, and—they were slipping away. Should I leap into the tide of explanation? That way, perhaps, lay safety. Always the quicksand of Qui s'excuse, s'accuse, made me draw back. I became extremely nervous.... Feverishly I tried to think of a remark which would be natural and more or less relevant, and would pilot us into a channel of conversation down which we could swim with confidence. Of all the legion of topics, the clemency of the weather alone occurred to me. I could have screamed....
The firebrand itself came to my rescue.
Tired of amusing himself, the terrier retrieved an old ball from beneath the hedge and, trotting across the sward, laid it down at my feet.
Gratefully I picked it up and flung it for him to fetch.
It fell into a thick welter of ivy which Time had built into a bulging buttress of greenery against the old grey wall at the end of the walk.