"O dear, no; Clarissa is not in the habit of telling me her affairs. I heard it from Warman; not in reply to any questioning of mine, I can assure you. But the thing has been so frequent, that the servants have begun to talk about it. Of course, I always make a point of discouraging any speculations upon my stepmother's conduct."
The servants had begun to talk; his wife's intimacy with people of whom he knew scarcely anything had been going on so long as to provoke the gossip of the household; and he had heard nothing of it until this moment! The thought stung him to the quick. That domestic slander should have been busy with her name already; that she should have lived her own life so entirely without reference to him! Both thoughts were alike bitter. Yet it was no new thing for him to know that she did not love him.
He looked at his watch meditatively.
"Has she gone there this afternoon, do you think?" he asked.
"I think it is excessively probable. Warman tells me she has been there every afternoon during your absence."
"She must have taken a strange fancy to these people. Austin's wife is some old schoolfellow of Clary's perhaps."
Miss Granger shook her head doubtfully.
"I should hardly think that," she said.
"There must be some reason—something that we cannot understand. She may have some delicacy about talking to me of these people; there may be something in their circumstances to—"
"Yes," said Miss Granger, "there is something, no doubt. I have been assured of that from the first."