"I believe," she said, "that the Duchess still has hopes of Mr. Mannering."
"She is a persistent woman," Blanche answered. "They say that she generally succeeds. Let us go in."
Berenice was listening to Mannering's account of his last few days' electioneering.
"The whole affair came upon me like a thunderclap," he told her. "Richard Fardell found it out somehow, and he took me to see Parkins. But it was too late. Polden had hold of the story and meant to use it. I never imagined but that Parkins had been talking and this journalist had got hold of him by accident. Now I understand that it was Borrowdean who was pulling the strings."
She nodded.
"He traced Parkins out some time ago, and knew exactly where he was to be found."
"I think," Mannering said, "that it is time Borrowdean and I came to some understanding. I haven't said anything about it yet. I don't exactly know what to say now. You are a very generous woman."
She sighed.
"No," she said, "I don't think that. Sir Leslie is a schemer of the class I detest. I listened to him once, and I have regretted it ever since. Yet you must remember this! If it had not been for him you would have been at Blakely to-day."