“According to the Archdeacon,” I said, “to more than was good for her.”
“I couldn’t help that.”
“No, you couldn’t. Nobody could. My mother thinks Miss Pettigrew may, but I don’t believe it myself. Lalage will break out all right as soon as she gets a chance.”
For the first time since we left the station the Canon smiled and seemed a little more cheerful.
“If I thought that——” he said.
“You may be perfectly sure of it, but I don’t think you ought actually to hope it. The Archdeacon is a very wise man and I’m sure that, if he contemplates the possibility at all, he fears it.”
“I suppose so,” said the Canon, sighing again. “It will all be a great change for Lalage, whatever happens.”
CHAPTER IV
I feared at first that Lalage was not going to write to me. Nearly three weeks passed before I got a letter from her and I was inclined to blame her for neglect of an old friend. When the letter did arrive I understood that I had no right to be angry. Lalage was better than I had dared to hope. She kept a kind of irregular diary in an exercise book and sent it to me. It was, like all diaries, in disconnected paragraphs, evidently written down when the mood for recording experiences was on Lalage. There were no dates attached, but the first entry must, I think, embody the result of a very early series of impressions. One, at least, of the opinions expressed in it was modified later on: