He turned to Mary with a change of tone.
“Miss Western,” he said, earnestly, “I promise you to say no more about it, and I will do my best to prevent Mrs Greville or any one bothering you—I really will, and I’m sorry I said you were bad-tempered.”
“Thank you, thank you very much,” said Mary, cordially.
And in a few minutes they rejoined Mrs Greville and the Misses Morpeth, the former fortunately too much taken up with a more recent occurrence to have any thought to spare for Mary’s misadventures.
“Fancy, my dear,” she began, “what an escape you have had! Mr Cheviott has just left us; he has been showing us the pictures himself. So very kind and attentive! You have only just missed him.”
“How fortunate for me!” said Mary, dryly.
It was quite dark when they got back to Uxley, and the next morning Mr Western came over as arranged, and took Mary home again the same afternoon.
It seemed to her as if she had been away weeks or months instead of days. She was glad to be home again, and yet now, if she could have deferred her return, she would. Lilias asked her no questions, but still, either in Mary’s imagination or in fact, there was a tacit disappointment in her manner when she found Mary had nothing to tell.
“I was hopeful of some good result from what I had in my head,” thought Mary, “and Lily is so quick, though she had not the least idea of my doing such a wild thing. I fancy she knew by instinct that I was hopeful.”
“You did not hear anything of those people—the Romary people, I mean?” asked Lilias, at last, timidly, but with a sudden rush of colour into her face, which made Mary feel inclined to cry. It was about two days after she had come back.