"How do you mean?"
"If he had been talking about Mrs. Trent."
She took Gardiner's breath away. "Well, you certainly have an imagination!" he said. "Don't go making suggestions of that kind to any one else, I beg!"
"It would have meant your getting off."
"It would have been the deuce and all for Mrs. Trent."
To that again Lettice answered nothing, but her under lip hardened slightly. She glanced at her watch. Five minutes more. Looking up, she met Gardiner's eyes fixed on her in urgent and unmistakable appeal. For a moment Lettice quailed. She saw something very big, very grave approaching, and she wanted ignominiously to run away. In all her generous giving there was always a reserve, a barrier of privacy, the fenced garden and the fountain sealed where she walked alone. But if he wanted to come in there for sanctuary—well, he must, it was no good, she could not deny him: this was not the time to think of herself.
"Lettice," he began—and for the first time she noticed his use of her name—"Lettice, there's one thing I want to tell you. You think I was caught red-handed in the act of bolting. It wasn't so. I had made up my mind to go back and give myself up. I was just off to do it when they arrested me. And I want you to know that it was all you—what you had said in town. I couldn't go on with it after that."
"I'm glad," said Lettice.
"I'm glad too," said Gardiner, his voice shaking, "partly, at any rate. I should be altogether glad if I were sure about the future."
"The future?"