Once there she has to go with him down the narrow woodland path, there being no other, and so paces on, silently, and sorely against her will.
"Sir Nicholas has sent me an invitation for the 19th," he says, presently, when the silence has become unendurable.
"Yes," says Mona, devoutly hoping he is going to say he means to refuse it. But such devout hope is wasted.
"I shall go," he says, doggedly, as though divining her secret wish.
"I am sure we shall all be very glad," she says, faintly, feeling herself bound to make some remark.
"Thanks!" returns he, with an ironical laugh. "How excellently your tone agrees with your words?"
Another pause. Mona is on thorns. Will the branching path, that may give her a chance of escaping a further tete-a-tete with him, never be reached?
"So Warden failed you?" he says, presently, alluding to old Elspeth's nephew.
"Yes,—so far," returns she, coldly.
"It was a feeble effort," declares he, contemptuously striking with his cane the trunks of the trees as he goes by them.