Then Violet turned to Tony, and her voice, which was low and strained, sent a little thrill through the listeners.
“Speak!” she said. “Tony, you can, you must, controvert it!”
Tony rose very slowly to his feet, and the courage of desperation was his. “I can’t. Miss Harding is quite correct,” he said. “I must ask the rest to leave us. This affair is ours—mine and Violet’s only, you see.”
“He is right,” said the vicar, rising. “I will ask you to let the story go no further in the meanwhile, Miss Harding. There is, I think, only one thing Mr. Palliser can do, but the responsibility is his.”
The others went away with him, and for a moment or two Violet and Tony stood face to face. Then when the man would have spoken the girl turned from him with a little gesture of repulsion.
“No,” she said faintly. “It is too horrible. I can bear nothing further now.”
She swept away from him, and Tony, standing rigidly still with hands clenched, let her go. Then he turned and strode with bent head across the lawn.
Five minutes later Hester Earle, entering one of the rooms quietly with the vicar, found Nettie lying in a chair and apparently shivering. She looked up when she saw them, and then turned her head away.
“Oh, I know you don’t want to talk to me!” she said. “Still, though I feel most horribly mean, I did it because I had to.”
“Yes,” said the vicar gently, “I think I understand. It must have cost you a good deal—and I fancy you were warranted.”