Evelyn flushed.
“When Miss Ellington proposed it, how could I refuse?” he said quickly. “She had decided to trust me, and from the bottom of my heart I thanked her for it, and I should not have been unworthy of her trust. Ever since you wrote to me from Brockenhurst——”
Madge turned to him.
“My mother wrote to you from Brockenhurst?” she asked.
“Yes; surely you knew—you must have known!” he said.
“I had not the smallest idea of it till this minute. What did she say?”
Lady Ellington lost her head a little.
“The letter I wrote you was private,” she said; “it was meant only for your eye.”
“It concerns me,” said Madge, tapping the table with a nervous, unconscious gesture. “I must know.”
Evelyn and she looked at each other, and it was as if each caught some light from the other’s eyes.