“He did.”
“How like Adrian,” said Lucilla.
She made the statement very matter-of-factly, but Quentillian knew it to be none the less a condemnation.
“There was—is—no chance of making Adrian give it up?” Flora asked.
“None, I should think, at present. Hale is a man of great personality, and Adrian is a good deal flattered, naturally enough, at being taken up by him. Of course he knows as well as you or I that it’s the thing of all others to distress the Canon most. He’s genuinely upset about it, in a way, but he struck me as being rather childishly bent on showing that he can strike out a line of his own.”
“Poor, poor Father! He has had so much to bear lately. Must he be told?” said Flora.
“Of course he must. But I don’t think Owen is the person to do the telling. Adrian should do it himself.”
“So I told him,” Quentillian observed rather grimly. “The utmost I could get out of him was a very short note, that I am to give to the Canon when he knows the facts.”
No comment followed the announcement of so slender an achievement, and they were sitting in silence when Canon Morchard came in.
He greeted Owen Quentillian affectionately, as he always did, but said quickly: