Bunny's contribution was to move towards the door. "I'll leave you to it," he said. "Lord, but I'm sick of women. One thing after another. You'd think a man had nothing better to do——"
"No, you don't," said Ellen quickly. "You'll find it will pay you best to stay and listen. It isn't about nothing this time. You've got to take it. You're caught out at last, Mr. Baxter. I don't want to be unfair to you. If you'll promise me on your word of honour to tell Millie everything from first to last about Miss Amery, I'll leave you. If afterwards I find you haven't, I'll supply the missing details. Millie's got to know the truth this time whatever she thinks either of me or of you."
Bunny stopped. His face stiffened. He turned back.
"You dirty spy!" he said. "So you're been down to my village, have you?"
"I have," said Ellen. "I've seen your mother and several other people. Tell Millie the truth and my part of this dirty affair is over."
Millie spoke: "You've seen his mother, Ellen? What right had you to interfere? What business was it of yours?"
"Oh, you can abuse me," Ellen answered defiantly. "I'm not here to defend myself. Anyway you can't think worse of me than you seem to. I waited and waited. I thought some one else would do something. I knew that Victoria had heard some of the stories and thought that she would take some steps. I thought that you would yourself, Millie. I fancied that you'd be too proud to go on month after month in the way you have done, putting up with his lies and shiftings and everything else. At last I could stand it no longer. If no one else would save you I would. I went down to his village in Wiltshire and got the whole story. I told his mother what he was doing. She's coming up to London herself to see you next week."
Millie's eyes were on Bunny and only on him in the whole world. She and he were enclosed in a little room, a blurring, sun-drenched room that grew with every moment smaller and closer.
"What is this, Bunny?" she said, "that she means? Now at last we'll have the whole story, if you don't mind. What is it that you've been keeping from me all these months?"
He laughed uneasily. "You're not going to pay any attention to a nasty, jealous woman like that, Millie," he said. "We all know what she is and why she's jealous. I knew she'd been raking around for ever so long but I didn't think that even her spite would go so far——"