“The end of it was that Miss Nunn consented to marry me.”
“She consented?”
“That comes as a surprise?”
“Please go on.”
“Well, we arranged everything. Rhoda was to stay till the fifteen days were over, and the marriage would have been there. But then arrived your letter, and we quarrelled about it. I wasn’t disposed to beg and pray for justice. I told Rhoda that her wish for evidence was an insult, that I would take no step to understand Mrs. Widdowson’s behaviour. Rhoda was illogical, I think. She did not refuse to take my word, but she wouldn’t marry me until the thing was cleared up. I told her that she must investigate it for herself, and so we parted in no very good temper.”
Miss Barfoot smiled and mused. Her duty, she now felt convinced, was to abstain from any sort of meddling. These two people must settle their affairs as they chose. To interfere was to incur an enormous responsibility. For what she had already done in that way Mary reproved herself.
“Now I want to ask you a plain question,” Everard resumed. “That letter you wrote to me at Ostend—did it represent Rhoda’s mind as well as your own?”
“It’s quite impossible for me to say. I didn’t know Rhoda’s mind.”
“Well, perhaps that is a satisfactory answer. It implies, no doubt, that she was still resolved not to concede the point on which I insisted. But since then? Has she come to a decision?”
It was necessary to prevaricate. Mary knew of the interview between Miss Nunn and Mrs. Widdowson, knew its result; but she would not hint at this.