“Mr. Rayner must have come to fetch you home,” she said coldly.
I would not have missed the walk home with Mr. Reade for the world.
“I am afraid so,” I stammered.
She looked colder still at my confusion; but there was only one way out of it, so I burst out—
“Oh, Mrs. Manners, Mr. Reade said he would come to fetch me! What shall I do?”
“You would rather go with him?”
“Oh, yes, yes!”
Her manner changed all at once. She put her arm around me and drew me to the French window.
“There, my dear—run out there and wait at the gate on the left. That’s the way they always come from the Hall. It is a little deception, I am afraid; but there—go, child, go! He is a good lad.”
So I ran swiftly across the lawn in the dusk, afraid of Mr. Rayner’s seeing me, and up the path between the laurel hedges which led to the side gate. The path curved just at the end, and I heard the gate swing to; but I could not stop myself. And, as Mr. Reade dashed round the corner, running too, I fell against him, and then panted out, “I beg your pardon,” very much confused. He had caught me by the arms, and he did not let me go, but held them very gently, while he said—