“It wasn’t my doing.”
“But you must have led him on,” moaned poor Eve. “You, who are so bright and pretty, while I—while I—”
Daisy gave her now a jealous, vindictive look, as if she felt danger; and that this gentle girl was about to rob her of the man she loved, and she exclaimed:
“I must go. I won’t stop to be scolded. You want to win him back; but he belongs to me.”
“Daisy, Daisy!” cried Eve, catching at her shawl; but it was too late—the girl had turned and run back into the road, hastening on to the place where she was to have found Richard Glaire, up by the chalk pit; and as she hastened on, she would not look back. Still poor Eve followed her sadly as far as the road, and then turned back towards the town, saying sadly:—
“I could not move her. It is too late, too late.”
Long before Eve Pelly had reached the town, with its knots of men out of work, Daisy had climbed the hill to the chalk pit, where Richard was waiting, smoking angrily.
“At last!” he cried. “I was just going back.”
He gave a glance round, and was about to throw his arms round the flushed and panting girl, when he started back, and stood staring, as Mrs Glaire came slowly forward from amongst the trees, and taking Daisy’s wrist in her hand, she pointed down the road.
“There, you can go back,” she said, quietly. “I wish to speak to Daisy Banks.”