"No, nothing of him, and don't desire to see him. He has been the cause of a great deal of suffering, as you see, and I think he has behaved odiously. She's very odd; she doesn't choose to confide in me. I don't think it's nice or kind of her, but, of course, it's her own affair; only this is plain to me, that she'll never think of any one else now but Cleve Verney."
"It's an awful pity," said Tom Sedley, quite sincerely.
They were walking down that steep and solitary road, by which Vane Etherage had made his memorable descent a few months since, now in deep shadow under the airy canopy of transparent leaves, and in total silence, except for the sounds, far below, of the little mill-stream struggling among the rocks.
"Don't you know Mr. Cleve Verney pretty well?"
"Intimately—that is, I did. I have not lately seen so much of him."
"And do you think, Thomas Sedley, that he will ever come forward?" said blunt Miss Charity.
"Well, I happen to know that Cleve Verney has no idea of anything of the kind. In fact, I should be deceiving you, if I did not say distinctly that I know he won't."
Tom was going to say he can't, but checked himself. However, I think he was not sorry to have an opportunity of testifying to this fact, and putting Cleve Verney quite out of the field of conjecture as a possible candidate.
"Then I must say," said Miss Charity, flushing brightly, "that Mr. Verney is a villain."
From this strong position Tom could not dislodge her, and finding that expostulation involved him in a risk of a similar classification, he abandoned Cleve to his fate.