"I cannot tell you. A faint rumour arose later—as I was told by Mr. Pine—that some one in a higher walk of life was supposed to have been implicated in the matter: some gentleman. The Rector tried to trace the report to its source, and to ascertain the name of the suspected man. He could get at nothing: but he says that an uncomfortable feeling about it remains still on his mind. I should not be surprised at the affair cropping up again some day."
The "morceau" came to an end with a final crash, and the conversation with it. Frank woke up with a start, to find a servant standing before him with a tray and tea-cups. He took one of the cups, and drank the tea quite scalding, never knowing whether it was hot or cold. Certain of the words, which he could not help overhearing, had startled all feeling out of him.
"Is it not time to go, Daisy?" he asked presently.
"If you think so," she freezingly answered.
"Then will you put on your bonnet, my dear," he said, never noticing the ungraciousness of her reply. After those ominous words, all other words, for the time being, fell on his ear as though he heard them not.
Not a syllable was exchanged between them as they sat together in the cab, speeding homewards. Frank was too unpleasantly absorbed to speak; Daisy was indulging resentment. That last sentence of Mr. Backup's, "I should not be surprised at the affair cropping up again," kept surging in his mind. He asked himself whether it was spoken prophetically; and, he also asked, what, if it did crop up, would be the consequences to himself?
"He is thinking of her," concluded Daisy, resenting the unusual silence, although she herself by her manner invoked it. And, in good truth, so he was.
Handing Daisy out of the cab when it stopped, Frank opened the surgery-door for her, and turned to pay the driver. At that self-same moment some man came strolling slowly along the pavement. He was wrapped up in a warm coat, and seemed to be walking for pleasure.
He looked at the cab, looked at the open door of the house, looked at Frank. Not straightforwardly; but by covert sidelong glances.
"Good-night, Mr. Raynor," said he at length, as he was passing.