"He wanted to know if you had gone to America with Miss Simpson, and Pa gave him a glowing account of how he had seen you in London."
"At the theatre?"
"No, no. Pa saw you once, long before that, one day in Hyde Park, with a lady—and a young gentleman. I thought it would be Lady Munro, but I never said so to Pa."
It was contrary to all Mona's instincts to ask what any one had said of her, but the opportunity was too precious to be lost. Her dignity must go.
"And what did Dr Dudley say to that?" she asked, as carelessly as she could.
Matilda hesitated; but she felt a pardonable longing to repeat her own brave words.
"I don't know whether I ought to tell you," she said. "You see—Dr Dudley doesn't know you as well as I do. He said in that horrid sneering way of his, 'And do you know what induced her to come masquerading down here?' I gave him a piece of my mind, I can tell you." And Matilda repeated the retort which she had so often gone over with keen satisfaction in her own mind.
"You loyal little soul!" said Mona; but her face had turned very white.
"Dr Dudley asked such an extraordinary thing," Matilda went on. "He wanted to know whether you were—a medical student!"
Ah! so he had noticed her name in the lists. Then why had he not written to her at the School?