"You will come in and rest after your walk?" suggested Kate, in her even, rounded voice.
"Thank you, no. I shall be late for luncheon as it is, I am afraid. If your—your husband will be kind enough to show me my way——"
"I'll come with you; you will never find it alone."
"No, please don't. I can manage quite well if you put me into the road."
"Nonsense. You would drown in a bog, or something. Kate, if mother walks over now the mist has cleared, will you tell her I shall be back in the afternoon? Don't wait dinner."
At the end of ten minutes' walking—
"You were very careful to call me Mrs. Ogilvie before your wife. Is she jealous in these cases, Griff?" cooed Sybil, feeling it wiser to taunt than to cry, since she had only the two alternatives from which to choose.
Griff muttered something softly to himself, and they walked on in unbroken silence for another mile. The cold, impersonal bearing of her companion roused something of Mrs. Ogilvie's pitiful prudence.
"You won't—how shall I put it?—I have made myself ridiculous—you won't breathe a word of it to any one, will you—to Bertie Dereham, I mean, or——"