"From whom did you hear?"
"I have just had a note from Zillah Denyer, about Madeline. She merely mentions that you are no longer there."
"I ought to go and see them; but I can't to-day."
"Have you been in London all the time?"
"Yes.—I have gone back to my husband."
It was spoken in a matter-of-fact tone (obviously assumed) which was very incongruous with the feeling it excited in Cecily. She could not hear the announcement without an astonished look.
"Of your own free will?" she asked, in a diffident voice. "Oh yes. That is to say, he persuaded me."
Their eyes met, and Cecily had an impulse of distrust, more decided than she had ever felt. She could not find anything to say, and by keeping silence she hoped the interview might be shortened.
"You are disposed to feel contempt for me," Mrs. Travis added, after a few moments.
"No one can judge another in such things. It is your own affair, Mrs. Travis."