“You needn't worry.” said Antonia. “It's me they think fishy, I was there.”
“Tony, I simply don't understand. Why were you there? What in the world can have taken you there? You haven't been on speaking terms with Vereker for months, and then you dash off to Riverside Cottage for the week-end - it doesn't seem to me to make sense!”
“Yes, it does. Arnold wrote me a stinking letter from the office on Saturday morning, and I got it that day. I went down to tackle him about it.”
“Ah, you darling!” Mesurier said, laying his hand in hers, and pressing it. “You needn't tell me. He wrote something libellous about me. I can just imagine it! But you shouldn't have done it, my sweet. I can look after myself.”
“Yes, I daresay you can,” answered Antonio, “but I wasn't going to have Arnold spreading lies about you all the same.”
“Darling! What did he tell you?”
“He didn't tell me anything specific, because I never saw him. He wrote a few pages of drivel, all about how I should very soon know the sort of blackguard I meant to marry, and how you were a skunk, and a thief, and various other things like that.”
“Gosh, he was a swine!” Mesurier exclaimed, flushing. “He realised, of course, that in another year he couldn't prevent our marriage, so he tried to blacken me to you. Have you got that letter?”
“No, I burned it. I thought it would be safer.”
He looked at her intently. “You mean in case the police got hold of it? You aren't keeping anything back, are you, darling? If Vereker made any definite accusation I wish you'd tell me.”