“Of what?”
“That I might not be able to go in and out to father without distressing him. I’ve been keeping everything back, pressing it down with a leaden weight. There, that will do. Don’t let us talk about myself, but—tell me—how was it between them? Would she have married him?”
He had to fall back again on the same answer.
“He thought so.”
“And you thought not? I see it in your face.”
“Then my face lies, for I cannot tell. Remember, I did not even see them together. A woman might have got to the bottom of it all, but I felt myself hopelessly floundering on the surface. He was content, isn’t that enough for you to remember?”
Her eyes met his gravely.
“Don’t think that I am like father in blaming her,” she said. “I believe I understand. And I am glad that Hugh was spared suffering, for he loved her with all his heart, and she would not have married him.”
Wareham looked at her in surprise. Just then they heard steps and men’s voices coming along the hidden road: here and there a detached word or two reached their ears. Was it a trick of fancy which made two of these words sound like “Miss Dalrymple”? As the tramp died away, he looked at Ella, and lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.
“Lord Ormsleigh’s party going home from shooting,” she said. “They sometimes cut across by the road when they have been at Langham.”