"So I saw," rather significantly.
"I stopped to have a little talk to her. There is no harm, I suppose, in that!" he added, irritably.
Helen laughed shortly and harshly.
"Harm! oh dear, no; whoever said there was? By the way, is not this freak of yours of going out into the roads to smoke, as you say, alone, rather a slight on your guest? Here is Mr. Wilde; how very amusing! we all seem to be drawn out towards the vicarage to-night."
Denis Wilde, in fact, had followed in the wake of his hostess, and they met him now by the lodge gates.
"How very strange!" called out Helen to him, in her scornful, bantering voice; "how strange that we should all have gone out for solitary rambles, and all meet in the same place; and there was Miss Nevill out in the vicarage garden, also on a solitary ramble."
"Is Miss Nevill there? I think I will go on and call upon her," said Denis.
"You too, Mr. Wilde!" cried Helen. "Have you fallen a victim to the beauty? We heard enough of her in town; she turned all the men's heads; even married men are not safe from her snares, and yet it is singular that none of her admirers care to marry her; there are some women whom all men make love to, but whom none care to make wives of!"
And Maurice was a coward, and spoke no word in her defence; he did not dare; but young Denis Wilde drew himself up proudly.
"Mrs. Kynaston," he said, sternly, "I must ask you not to speak slightingly of Miss Nevill."