“Oh!” she exclaimed sharply. “Do you suppose I don’t know that while you were in Wynberg you heard me discussed? I’ve got relations there; they write to me. The things people say!”
So already the gossip that was being circulated had reached her on her journeying. Dare scrutinised her closely, uncertain whether to treat her frankly as she seemed to wish, or to attempt to acquire the information he needed by less straightforward methods. In the end he resolved to be frank. Despite all that he had heard relative to her flight and her previous relations with Arnott, he had a strong persuasion that the stories concerning her were mostly lies. He discredited entirely the tale of her elopement. A girl does not run away with a man and leave him immediately to follow the kind of life she was at present leading. The fact that Arnott had been in Johannesburg at the same time that she was there called for some other explanation, he decided.
“Don’t you think that perhaps you have your own indiscretion to blame for the stories that are being floated?” he asked.
His question seemed to surprise her.
“In what way should you say I have been indiscreet?” she inquired.
“The manner of your leaving is an open secret,” he replied.
“There is no secret about it,” she returned with some impatience. “I just went. In my opinion I was quite justified in acting as I did.”
“Quite possibly you were,” he allowed. “But unfortunately Mr Arnott acted in the same ill-considered manner. When people do these things they must expect gossip.”
She did not reply to this. Dare judged from her silence that she was fully informed as to the manner of Arnott’s leaving home. This seeming knowledge of the man’s movements shook his faith in her somewhat.
“I suppose you think, with others, that circumstance had something to do with me?” she said presently.