“My dear Philip,” exclaimed his wife. “Do you never hear any gossip?”
“I never heard any gossip as to the relations of these two people,” he said decidedly. Then, looking at his wife, “Did you?”
“I can’t remember exactly when I first heard a word said. But I do remember that I didn’t believe a word of it,” answered Mrs. Cole-Wright. “But of course I’ll change my mind if Miss Prince has any evidence that they were intimate——?” and she looked fixedly at her visitor.
“Intimate!” exclaimed the rector in a horrified tone.
“All I can say is,” Miss Prince spoke in a dogged tone, “that on the very morning I took those strawberries to the Thatched House, Harry Garlett and Miss Bower walked back together from Grendon across the fields. I saw them with my own eyes, just before I left the house.”
As the husband and wife leaned forward in their chairs and looked at her full of keen, if rather shamefaced, curiosity, she went on composedly:
“I’d already heard some talk about them even then. Jean Bower’s a very attractive girl, for all her quiet ways. Old Dodson was crazy about her.”
Mrs. Cole-Wright said musingly: “When one comes to think of it, Jean Bower was at the Etna China factory some time before Mrs. Garlett’s death. She first came here in the winter.”
“So she did—I’d forgotten that! Still, if Mrs. Maclean is to be believed,” observed the rector, “she and her husband were utterly taken by surprise over the engagement. The day she came to see me about the marriage—you remember how quiet they wanted it to be—she admitted that they had both thought the girl liked Tasker.”
“Dr. Tasker has reason to be thankful to-day,” said Miss Prince slowly.