“I suppose, then, it’s owing to your and father’s united solicitude on my behalf that Master Rej Trevor hasn’t shown his face at Hollymead for the last couple of weeks.”
“I’ve had nothing to do with it, Vaga.”
“Which seems to say that somebody has, then. I suspected as much, by your having said nothing about it. As you seem to know something, Sab, you may as well tell it me.”
“I will—all I know. Which is, that father has forbidden his visits to Hollymead. I only learnt it from our maid Gwenthian. It appears, that the last time Mr Trevor was at the house, she overheard a conversation between father and him; father telling him as much as that he would be no more welcome there.”
“And what answer did the fine gentleman make? I suppose the eavesdropping Gwenthian heard that, too.”
There was such evident absence of all emotion on the part of her who interrogated, she could not well be making believe. The other, seeing she was not, responded with confidence,—
“Nothing, or nothing much, except in mutterings, which the girl failed to catch the meaning of. But the nature may be imagined from the way he went off—all scowling and angry, she says.”
“Gwenthian has never mentioned the circumstance to me; which I take it is a little strange on her part.”
She thought it so, for of the two she was more a favourite with the waiting maid than her sister, and knew it. Between her and Gwenthian—a Forest girl of quick wit and subtle intelligence—many confidences had been exchanged. Therefore her wonder at this having been withheld.
“Not at all,” rejoined Sabrina, entering upon a defence of Gwenthian’s reticence. “There was nothing strange in her keeping it from you. She supposed it might vex you—told me so.”