“What made you do it then?” said Evereld.
Ivy crimsoned.
“It was Myra’s fault. I believe she was in league with him. When I found that she had told you such a lie about me, I thought I would show everyone how false it was.”
“But I knew it to be false almost directly,” said Evereld. “It was only for an hour or so, before there had been time to think things over that I believed it, dear. Indeed if I had been well and strong I don’t think I should have believed it for a moment.”
To her surprise Ivy suddenly broke down and began to sob.
“Oh,” she said, “I am so dreadfully alone in the world! I don’t think I can do without you two.”
“Why should you do without us?” said Evereld. “I hope you are not going to punish me any more for having been cold and repellent the other day? Ralph and I shall always want you to be our friend.”
“But how can I be your friend when all these days you have been discussing me?”
“We haven’t discussed you. Ralph has never heard one word of what Myra said. The only thing he did say was that he thought you did not realise the sort of man Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes really was, or you would be more careful. Of course he can’t help knowing, too, that you have quarrelled with Myra, because you don’t speak to her.”
“I am going to tell you just the whole truth,” said Ivy, drying her eyes and looking straight up at Evereld with an air of resolute courage that made her winsome little face actually beautiful. “I did love Ralph once. At first he was just a sort of hero to me, but in Scotland when we were all so miserable and he was always trying to help me, then I began to love him; and when the Skoots disappeared and left us stranded at Forres I couldn’t bear to be parted from him and let him see that I cared. I knew he understood; for he showed me that it would not do for us to stay together when the company dispersed, and he told me how he cared for you, not of course saying your name, but I knew he meant you. At first it made me angry and miserable, but I liked him so for being true, and for speaking straightforwardly as very few men do to women; and always he made me feel that he respected me and liked and trusted me. When later on the Brintons told me he was engaged to you I was able to be glad of it—I was indeed; and when Myra told me the other day that you believed such a lie about me, and I guessed at once it was all her doing—why it seemed as if she had trodden under foot the very best part of me, and afterwards I didn’t much care what I did. I think I could almost have married Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes.”