‘Whoever told you all this?’ inquired William Henry in amazement.
‘A person who is no friend of his, but, like him, has a generous nature.’
‘Methinks you do protest too much,’ observed the young man drily. ‘No one was saying anything against your informant, who it was easy to perceive was Mr. Frank Dennis. I thought he had literally withdrawn his countenance from us of late, as he has done long ago in another sense.’
‘No one can control his own opinions, Willie,’ said Margaret gently. ‘I have heard you yourself say a hundred times, concerning this very matter, that every one had a right to them, but, since the very knowledge of Frank’s entertaining certain views (though he never expressed them except upon compulsion) was an annoyance to my uncle, he thought it better to absent himself.’
‘But still you meet him elsewhere?’
‘I met him in the street the other day by accident. He gave me, it is true, the information I have just given to you, but he did not volunteer it. It was I who spoke to him first about Mr. Wallis.’
‘It seems he took great care to undeceive you as to that gentleman’s having any belief in me.’
‘In you, Willie? We never even spoke of you.’
This was very true: he had become a subject to which, for Frank’s sake, she never alluded in Frank’s presence.