"Marmaduke Carr says you do encourage it. He tells me you were strolling with the girl and Robert last Sunday afternoon in the fields on the other side the water. I confess I was surprised to hear this, William."
William Arkell raised his honest eyes, so clear and truthful, straight to the face of his father.
"How things may be distorted!" he exclaimed. "Do you remember, sir, my mother asked me, as we left the cathedral after service, to go and inquire whether there was any change for the better in Mrs. Pembroke?"
"I remember it quite well."
"Well, I went. Coming back, I chose the field way, and I had no sooner got into the first field, than I overtook Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes. I walked with him through the fields until we came to the bridge, and then I came on alone. Much 'encouragement' there was in that!"
"It was countenancing the thing, at any rate, if not encouraging it," remarked Mr. Arkell.
"There's no harm in it; none at all."
"Do you mean in the affair itself, or in your having so far lent yourself to it?"
"In both," fearlessly answered William. "I wonder who it is that carries these tales to old Carr! We did not meet a soul, that I remember; he must have spies at work."
The remark rather offended Mr. Arkell.