“Dear—?”
“Do you know about it, please?” she repeated. “They are on a hillside, and Florence is in the distance.”
“My good Lucia, I am all at sea. I know nothing about it whatever.”
“There are violets. I cannot believe it is a coincidence. Charlotte, Charlotte, how could you have told her? I have thought before speaking; it must be you.”
“Told her what?” she asked, with growing agitation.
“About that dreadful afternoon in February.”
Miss Bartlett was genuinely moved. “Oh, Lucy, dearest girl—she hasn’t put that in her book?”
Lucy nodded.
“Not so that one could recognize it. Yes.”
“Then never—never—never more shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine.”