'How did you learn his name?'
'It dropped from you incidentally when speaking to Elliot.'
'Did it?' said she, with a pallid lip.
'Yes, when hunting, at a house in the neighbourhood.'
'I—I know no one—I mean no harm—and Roland cannot ride to hounds just now,' urged Annot, a little piteously, and adopting her child-like manner.
'Then neither should you, Annot.'
'I will do so no more, Maude—and I give you my word,' she added emphatically, and with an air of perfect candour, 'that I shall never again see Mr. Hoyle!'
Then Maude kissed her, but, as she did so, it scarcely required so close an observer as Hester to detect the actual dislike—all sweet and lovely as her face was—that lurked under her cousin's affected cordiality.
But the latter's indignation returned when the pledge was broken.
Deeming all this most unfair to Roland, his sunny-haired sister consulted with Hester, but that young lady nervously declined to involve herself in the matter, though Roland nearly took the initiative one day (when Hester was arranging some fresh flowers in his room) with reference to Annot's now frequent absences and seeming neglect of him.