"Yes."
"Matilda and I are great friends now, and I have had good reason to be ashamed of my original attitude towards her. I think it was you who put me right."
"Indeed it was not," he said warmly. "I, forsooth! You put yourself right—if you were ever wrong."
"I was wrong. And you—well, you took too high an estimate of me, and that is the surest way of putting people right. You have no idea how much good stuff there is in that child. She is becoming quite a German scholar; and she has read Sesame and Lilies, has been much struck by that quotation from Coventry Patmore, and at the present moment is deep in Heroes. What do you say to that?"
"Score!" he said quietly. "How did she come to know you?"
"Oh, by one of the strange little accidents of life. She has done me a lot of good, too. She is very warm-hearted and impressionable."
There was a lull in the conversation. Across the bare fields came the distant roar of the sea. They were still nearly half a mile from home, and a great longing came upon Mona to tell him about her medical studies. Why had she been such an idiot as to make that promise; and, having made it, why had she never asked her cousin to release her from it? She drew a long breath.
"My dear," said Rachel's voice behind them, "Mr Stuart wants to have a little conversation with you. Well, doctor, I hope Mistress Hamilton is not worse, that you are here just now?"
Mr Stuart's wrongs were avenged.
For one moment Dudley thought of protesting, but the exchange of partners was already effected, and he was forced to submit.