The Miss Fennells glanced quickly at her, and in those glances I felt the cruel power of their coercion. By those glances they forced her to give the answer that she made.
They were no better, she said, quietly.
"But they're no worse, my dear," added Miss Teresa, cleverly. "I'm sure the doctor that Harry made you see in London has treated you the right way."
She made no reply to that. When forced to play a part, it must be difficult to enter with one's whole heart into the spirit of it. I could hear in her silence the brokenness of spirit, that exhaustion of courage which must come when the wings have been beating, ceaselessly beating against the bars of a cage.
They gave her a moment in which to make answer, and then, glad, no doubt, of her silence, they declared they must be going home. Miss Mary held out her hand.
"Good-night, Mrs. Townshend," she said.
But it needed very little cleverness to be cleverer than that.
"Oh, we're coming back, too," said Bellwattle. "We had just agreed to turn when we heard your voices."
So we all set back for Ballysheen. Now, this was the moment I had been waiting for. Their suspicion fell least upon me. By her questions alone, if not also from the fact that she was a neighbor, it was their strategy to manœuvre that Bellwattle should walk with them. Not for one moment would they have trusted her alone with Clarissa; wherefore, the path being a narrow one, Miss Teresa walked first, leaving Bellwattle in the charge of Miss Mary. And so it fell out that I walked with Clarissa alone.
You may imagine how, with those few moments before me, my thoughts were like leaves on a swollen stream. Round and round my head they eddied and swirled, and not a one could I grasp to give it words. We must have walked fifty yards before a thing was spoken. Now, this is not my way with women. As a rule I talk to them with ease. True, it is while they are talking to Dandy, and doubtless that gives me confidence. But in this case everything seemed different. I might never have spoken to a woman before. But when we had walked so far in silence it came to desperation with me. I said anything; what, indeed, seemed nonsense at the time. In the light of things, as I see them now, I can imagine that it was the very best beginning I could have made.