"I wanted to speak to you!"
"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face.
"I wanted to tell you—that there are suspicions—about Monk Lawrence.
You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!"
There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly.
"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower."
"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced urgency. "You have been seen at night—following Daunt about, examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up—you must! I have written to Miss Marvell."
Marion Andrews laughed,—a sound of defiance.
"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night."
And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to her brother's house, and was immediately out of sight.
Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was no longer trusted—no longer in the inner circle—and that Gertrude herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I have been a child in their hands!—they have never trusted me!" Heart and vanity were equally wounded.