His tone is even colder than he means it to be. The Rector—what will he say when he hears of this visit of Susan’s? The Rector, who is so ultra-particular, and this girl without a name—so almost certainly illegitimate! Fancy the Rector’s face when he hears of this thoughtless visit of Susan’s! Mr. Barry is a good man, and charitable in his own line, but to give his countenance to a friendship between his daughter and a girl nameless—unknown!
‘We are telling her,’ goes on Susan sweetly, ‘that she must come and see us sometimes, too—just across the road, you know. But she says she will not. Can’t you persuade her, Mr. Wyndham, though you are only her landlord, as you say?’ Is there meaning in her tone? Does she think? Wyndham glances at her suspiciously, and then knows he ought to be ashamed of himself. ‘Still, landlords have weight, and you know father would be so pleased if she would come to us sometimes.’
‘I dare say,’ says Wyndham, who can almost see Mr. Barry’s face when the idea is suggested to him. The Rector, with his aristocratic tendencies, that the very depths of poverty have not been able to subdue, would think it monstrous, Susan’s being here at all with a girl so wrapped in mystery—a girl so enveloped in the base gossip that already is arising about her in the neighbourhood, because of her strange tenancy of the Cottage—a gossip that must inevitably include him, Wyndham, too. How is her coming here to be accounted for? Who will hold him guiltless of the knowledge of her coming?
‘If you are going,’ says he, turning suddenly to Susan, ‘I shall go with you; I wish to speak to your father.’ He has made up his mind on the moment to lay the whole affair open to the Rector. It seems the only thing to be done, if his tenant has decided on knowing the Barrys. ‘You tell me Miss Moore is anxious—’
‘Your name is Moore, then?’ says Susan gently, going a step towards her.
‘It is not!’ says the girl almost passionately.
There is a silence; Wyndham, feeling the water closing over him more and more still, with the girl’s troubled eyes upon him, comes to the rescue.
‘It is, at all events, the only name by which she is known at present,’ says he to Susan. ‘I am looking into her affairs, and hope in time to be able to unravel them. That is the good of being a barrister, you see. And now—if you are ready?’
Susan bids good-bye again to Ella, who is looking a little subdued and uncertain now; Carew does the same, holding her hand lingeringly, as if wishing to say something sympathetic to her, but finding words fail him. Wyndham, following him and Susan, would have passed through the gate into the road outside, but that Ella, with a quick, softly-spoken word, full of emotion, stops him.
‘I have done something wrong,’ says she, in a breathless whisper. ‘Wait—do wait—one moment, and tell me, tell me—’ Tears are standing thick within her eyes.