“If you will be so good as to open the door, I should very much like to go.”
Mr Cheviott took up the cue with considerable relief. Any amount of formality was better than tears.
“Certainly,” he said, quietly. Then, almost to his own astonishment, the ludicrous side of the position suddenly presenting itself to him, a spirit of mischief incited him to add, “you must allow, Miss Western, I am in no way to blame for this disagreeable adventure of yours. And, if you will pardon my asking you, I must confess before I let you out I should very much like to know how you got in.”
Mary flamed up instantly.
“You have no right,” she began,—“no right,” she was going to say, “to ask me anything I have not chosen to tell you,” but she stopped short. She was in Mr Cheviott’s own house—how could she possibly refuse to tell him how she had got there? “I beg your pardon,” she said instead. “I—I came here with Mrs Greville and some people who wanted to see the house. I did not want to come,” she could not resist adding, with a curious little flash of defiance, “but I could not help it.”
“Ah! indeed, I understand,” said Mr Cheviott, turning to open the door, but to which part of her speech his observation was addressed, Mary was left in ignorance.
Mr Cheviott stopped.
“Which way do you wish to go out?” he asked.
“Out to the garden, if you please,” said Mary, eagerly. “That is the way Mr Morpeth—the gentleman that was with me, I mean—will be coming back. At least, I don’t know,” she went on, growing confused; “it depends on where he finds the housekeeper. But anyway, I would rather meet them all outside.”
“How on earth did ‘the gentleman that was with her’ get out?” thought Mr Cheviott—“or was it through some foolery of his that she got locked in?” But he was determined to ask no more questions.