“Then I am not so unjust as to refuse to hear you.”
“My name has been spoken of together with Mr. Barfoot’s. This is wrong. It began from a mistake.”
Monica could not shape her phrases. Hastening to utter the statement that would relieve her from Miss Nunn’s personal displeasure, she used the first simple words that rose to her lips.
“When I went to Bayswater that day I had no thought of seeing Mr. Barfoot. I wished to see someone else.”
The listener manifested more attention. She could not mistake the signs of sincerity in Monica’s look and speech.
“Some one,” she asked coldly, “who was living with Mr. Barfoot?”
“No. Some one in the same building; in another flat. When I knocked at Mr. Barfoot’s door, I knew—or I felt sure—no one would answer. I knew Mr. Barfoot was going away that day—going into Cumberland.”
Rhoda’s look was fixed on the speaker’s countenance.
“You knew he was going to Cumberland?” she asked in a slow, careful voice.
“He told me so. I met him, quite by chance, the day before.”