“Have you forgotten the girl who fell off her bicycle, the girl you saved from being run over?”
An exclamation, which was one almost of relief, broke from the baronet’s lips.
“Of course,” cried he. “Pembury, Miss Pembury! I knew I’d heard the name, I was almost sure I’d seen the face. But till this moment I confess I didn’t recognise her, though from time to time I felt sure I’d seen her before. I wonder——”
He broke off, with a frown of annoyance and perplexity on his face. His wife knew what he meant.
“You wonder what she wants here?” she said significantly. “Well, so do I. I can’t help thinking it is a very strange thing to do to sneak back into the house without making herself known, and I shall be very much surprised if we are not made to regret her reappearance!”
Sir Robert, who was not at all quick of perception, being an absent-minded, mild-natured man, wholly without suspicion or mistrust, looked more perplexed than ever.
“Why should we regret it?” he said. “She has grown into a most charming woman, gentle, sympathetic, and very clever and kind. I cannot even now realise that such a woman has grown out of the shy, lanky, white-faced girl who fell off the bicycle. I can’t see anything wrong about her coming; and since I didn’t recognise her I don’t see why she should have felt it necessary to remind me who she was. She made no attempt at disguise, you know. I feel ashamed of my own stupidity in having forgotten her name.”
The fact was that Rhoda Pembury’s first appearance at the Mill-house was made at a time when the baronet, very much in love with Lady Sarah, was not in a condition to receive vivid impressions of any other person.
Lady Sarah brought him back to her point.
“Doesn’t it seem to you strange that she should have said nothing to you about—about what happened here on the night she went away?”