“Madame Didier,” interrupted Anne quietly.
The Vicar paused.
“Madame Didier, since you seem to know my correspondent. It was a letter written to me as the vicar of the parish, begging me to warn Dr. Dakin against your influence with his wife.”
Anne did not speak.
“Madame Didier gave reasons for this interference,” he went on after a moment. “Reasons which seemed to me to be based on false and scandalous charges. The letter, however, so intimately concerned my friend, that I was compelled to show it to him. It was burnt in my presence, and such was my implicit confidence in you that I wrote a strong, I may say a threatening letter to the lady, forbidding her to circulate libellous reports.”
“I am grateful to you,” Anne said.
The Vicar glanced at her.
“I have since regretted that letter,” he added deliberately.
“A fortnight ago, business called me to London, and I spent an evening with my wife’s friends, the Lovells. Madame Didier, whose stay in England has been protracted, was with her aunt. I did not know this when I went to see the Lovells,” he added, “or I should naturally have avoided the chance of an unpleasant encounter.
“However, in spite of my protestations, and my refusal to hear your name spoken by her, the lady insisted, and to avoid entering upon unpleasant details, I may say at once that she gave me incontrovertible evidence as to the truth of her assertions.”