“We’ll see about it,” they said. Duffham undertook this expedition—if you can call it one. He found it easier than he anticipated. That same evening, upon quitting Caromel’s Farm, Duffham went mooning along, deep in thought, as to how he should make the disclosure to Charlotte, when he overtook her near his home. Her crape veil was thrown back; her face looked pale and quiet in the starlight.
“You are abroad late,” said Duffham.
“I went to see old Miss Pinner this afternoon, and stayed tea with her,” answered Charlotte. “And now I am going to run home.”
“Would you mind coming in for a few minutes, Mrs. Caromel?” he asked, as they reached his door. “I have something to say to you.”
“Can you say it another time? It is nine o’clock, and my mother will be wondering.”
“No; another time may not do,” said Duffham. “Come in. I won’t detain you long.”
And being just one of those yielding people that never assert a will of their own, in she went.
Shut up in Duffham’s surgery, which was more remote from Nomy’s ears than the parlour, Duffham disclosed to her by degrees the truth. Whether he had to get out his sal-volatile over it, or to recover her from fits, we did not hear. One thing was certain: that when Mrs. Nash Caromel recommenced her walk homewards, she was too bewildered to know whether she went on her feet or her head. By that time on the following evening she would have seen her husband.
At least, such was the programme Duffham carved out. But to that bargain, as he found the next day, there might be two words.
Eleven was striking in the morning by the kitchen clock at Caromel’s Farm, when Grizzel saw Miss Gwinny driving in. The damaged gig had been mended, and she now drove backwards and forwards herself.