Mary’s cheeks grew hot, dark as it was. She did not know whether to be angry or grateful, whether indignantly to declare her indifference to Withenden gossip or to choose, as her conductor evidently wished to suggest, “discretion as the better part of valour.” A moment’s reflection decided her that, considering all he had done and was doing, she had no right to reject the suggestion.
“Thank you,” she said, and, turning to the groom, gave a distinct message, short and to the point. “My letter will be at Dr Brandreth’s before now,” she added to Mr Cheviott, “and that will explain a little. It was asking him to come early to-morrow.”
“That message is all you have to give,” said Andrew’s master as the man was hastening off. “You need not say who brought it, or anything.”
“But, Mr Cheviott,” said Mary, half timidly, half indignantly, “I would not mind all Withenden knowing I had brought it. And—and your driving me here was really an act of pure humanity; no one could say I had done anything in the least not—not nice.”
Her voice quivered a little.
“Certainly not. But don’t you think sometimes—we must take the world as we find it, you know—sometimes it is just as well to give ‘no one’ the power to say good, bad, or indifferent about what we do?” said Mr Cheviott, very gently.
“Perhaps,” said Mary, more humbly than was usual with her. Then she added, “It was not nice of me to say that—about your kindness being an act of pure humanity. I didn’t mean—I only meant—I don’t know what I meant, but I am very, very much obliged to you.”
“But you have no reason to be. It was, as you said, just an act of common humanity,” said Mr Cheviott, with slight bitterness.
”‘Pure,’ I said, not ‘common’,” corrected Mary.
“Well, it’s all the same. How can I think you will consider it even an act of friendliness? You won’t have us for your friends. And even if I were ten times the unmitigated ruffian you believe me to be,” he added, with a slight laugh, “would it not be an immense pleasure to me to return in the slightest degree your goodness to Alys? You do believe I care for her, I think? I am grateful, most grateful, to you and to the dark night, and to the chance that made me choose that way home, for making it possible for me to be of the least service to you.”