"I fancied something stirred, down there. What was it?"
"It was Tabitha. I am certain of it. I saw her the moment we turned. She might have been watching us ever so long; all the way up the walk; I dare say she was doing so. Oh, Frank, what shall I do? She will go in and tell mamma."
"Let her," said Frank. "The worst she can say is, that we were walking arm-in-arm together. I cannot think why you need be so fearful, Daisy. Your mother must know that we do meet out here, and she must tacitly sanction it. She used to know it, and sanction it too."
Daisy sighed. Yes, she thought, her mother might, at any rate, suspect that they met. It was not so much that which Daisy feared. But, the one private act she had been guilty of lay heavily on her conscience; and she was ever haunted with the dread that any fresh movement would lead to its betrayal.
Saying good-night to each other, for it was growing late, Frank departed, and Daisy went in. Her mother was shut up in the drawing-room, and she went on straight to her sister's chamber. There an unpleasant scene awaited her. Lydia, not yet in bed—for she had refused to go, and had abused Tabitha for urging it—lay back still in the easy-chair. Could looks have annihilated, Daisy would certainly have sunk from those cast on her by Lydia, as she entered.
And then the storm began. Lydia reproached her in no measured terms, and with utter scorn of tone and manner, for the "clandestine intimacy," as she was pleased to call it, that she, Daisy, was carrying on with Frank Raynor.
It appeared that after the candles were lighted, and Mrs. St. Clare had gone down, Lydia, declining to go to bed, and wanting to be amused, required Daisy to read to her again. Tabitha was sent in search of Daisy, and came back saying she could not find her anywhere: she was not downstairs, she was not in her chamber. "Go and look in the garden, you stupid thing," retorted Lydia: "you know Miss Daisy's for ever out there." Tabitha—a meek woman in demeanour, who took abuse humbly—went to the garden as directed, searched, and at length came upon Miss Daisy in the avenue, pacing it on the arm of Mr. Raynor. Back she went, and reported it to Lydia. And now Lydia was reproaching her.
"To suffer yourself to meet that man clandestinely after night has fallen!" reiterated Lydia. "And to stay out with him!—and to take his arm! You disgraceful girl! And when, all the while, he does not care one jot for you! He loves some one else."
Daisy had received the tirade on herself in silence, but she fired up at this. "You have no right to say that, Lydia," she cried. "Whether he loves me, or not, I shall not say; but, at any rate, he does not love any one else."
"Yes, he does," affirmed Lydia.