Flora still remained silent.
“I wish you’d tell me if he ever wrote anything to you about me,” sobbed Mrs. Carey.
In the midst of the tears which seemed to be really beyond her own control, Flora caught a glimpse as of a terrible anxiety. She suddenly knew that in the answer to that last, sobbed-out question lay, for Mrs. Carey, the crux of their interview.
“He did write,” said Flora. “But what he wrote is safe with me. It will never go any further.”
The figure in the gay silk kimono seemed to cower further back into the armchair, but there was no self-betraying exclamation.
“I suppose he told you about Fred and me?”
“And about himself too,” said Flora.
“Men are all alike! Why did he want to tell you?”
“So that I could tell my father and sister. David was afraid of Father.”
“Your father knows?” This time the note of alarm was undisguised.