"It might do you more good to eat dinner than to roam about in a night-fog," was Mr. Edwin Barley's rejoinder. "It is rather curious you should choose such a night as this to be out, half-naked."
"Not curious," she said, coldly: "very natural."
"Very! Especially that you should be tearing up and down the wood paths, like a mad woman. Others saw you as well as myself, and are speaking of it."
"Let them speak."
"But for what purpose were you there?"
"I was looking for George Heneage. There! you may make the most of it."
"Did you find him?"
"No. I wish I had: I wish I had. I should have learnt from him the truth of this night's business; for the truth, as I believe, has not come to light yet."
"What do you suppose to be the truth?" he returned, in a tone of surprise; whether natural, or assumed, who could say?
"No matter—no matter now: it is something that I scarcely dare to glance at. Better, even, that Heneage had done it, than—than—what I am thinking of. My head is confused to-night," she broke off; "my mind unhinged—hardly sane. You had better leave me, Mr. Barley."