Freda had been reprimanded at the convent for occasional outbursts of passion. But she had never yet felt the force of such a torrent of indignation as seemed to sweep through her frame at this, the first sneer at her infirmity she had ever heard. She scarcely noticed Dick’s angry remonstrance; but raising her flushed face to Robert, she said:
“You can sneer at me now. Perhaps you will not when I am in the house of my father, Captain Mulgrave.”
“Come, that’s rather strong, little girl,” he said coolly. “To be Mulgrave’s daughter—which you may be for anything I know—is one thing, but to live in his house is another. I can assure you he has made no preparations for your reception.”
His insolent tone stung Freda to a greater heat of passion.
“Perhaps you are not in my father’s confidence,” she said in a voice which shook a little. “If you had been, you might have known that he was going to visit Josiah Kemm.”
Without waiting to see the effect of her words, Freda ran out of the barn, across the court-yard, and up to the room she had slept in. There she put on her hat and cloak, and after waiting some time in fear lest she might be hunted out, stole out of the room and came, to her disgust, face to face with Blewitt. He had on a thick coat and riding-boots.
“I beg pardon, ma’am, but I was a-coming to inform you that I have been hordered by Mr. ’Eritage to go to the Abbey with a letter for your respected father, Captain Mulgrave. Now, ma’am, I should esteem it a honour to be sent to a gentleman like Captain Mulgrave on any hordinary errand. But knowing, as I happen to do, the himport of the letter, I feel it very different, I assure you, ma’am.”
Freda was too unsophisticated to guess by what simple means Blewitt had arrived at the knowledge he alluded to. But she was afraid he wanted to tell her something she ought not to hear, and she interrupted him hurriedly.
“Yes, I’m sure that all you say is quite—quite right,” she said nervously. “But I—I am going out, and I cannot——”
“You cannot stay under the roof of such people as them. Which I was sure, ma’am, that such would be your feelings. Barnabas Ugthorpe, the farmer, has been here with his cart a-inquiring after you; and I know where he is to be found now, if so be as you would like me to show you how to get out by a private door.”