‘He knows that I and Chicot are one.’
‘Ah, then I can understand the look he gave you on the night of our first dinner-party—a look full of malignity. He had just been talking of Chicot.’
She shuddered as she pronounced a name associated with such unspeakable horror. And that name was her husband’s; the man branded with the suspicion of a hideous crime was her husband.
‘I am afraid Edward is your secret enemy,’ she said, after a pause.
‘I am sure he is—and I believe he is on the eve of becoming my open enemy. It will be a triumph in a small way for me to take the initiative, and resign the estate.’
CHAPTER XXXII.
ON HIS DEFENCE.
A letter was brought to the Vicar just as he was sitting down to his five o’clock dinner that Sunday evening in the bosom of his family. The Vicar dined at five on Sundays, giving himself an hour for his dinner, and fifty minutes for repose after it, before he left home for the seven o’clock service. There were those among his congregation who affirmed that the tone of the Vicar’s evening sermon depended very much upon his satisfaction with his dinner. If he dined well he took a pleasant view of human nature and human frailty, and was milder than Jeremy Taylor. If his dinner had been a failure the bitterest Calvinism was not severe enough for him.
‘From the Manor House, sir,’ said the parlour-maid. ‘An answer waited for.’
‘Why do people bring me letters just as I am sitting down to my dinner?’ ejaculated the Vicar pettishly. ‘From Treverton, too. What can he have to write about?’