'Polly is going to make a clean breast of it; I am to hear her confession,' he said, with a cheerfulness that reassured Mildred. 'There is no time like the present. I mean to bring her back by and by, and then we will make our apologies together.'
Mildred sighed as the door closed after them; she would fain have known what passed between them; her heart grew heavy with foreboding as time elapsed and they did not make their appearance. When her business was finished, and Olive had left her, she sat for more than half an hour with her eyes fixed on the door, feeling as though she could bear the suspense no longer.
She started painfully when the valves unclosed.
'We have been longer than I expected,' began Dr. Heriot.
His face was grave, and Mildred fancied his eyes looked troubled. Polly had been crying.
'It was a rambling confession, and one difficult to understand,' he continued, keeping the girl near him, and Mildred noticed she leant her face caressingly against his coat-sleeve, as she stood there; 'and it goes back to the day of our picnic at Hillbeck.'
Mildred moved uneasily; there was something reproachful in his glance directed towards herself; she averted her eyes, and he went on—
'It seems you were all agreed in keeping me in the dark; you had your reasons, of course, but it appears to me as though I ought to have been the first to hear of Roy's visit,' and there was a marked emphasis in his words that made Mildred still more uncomfortable. 'I do not wish to blame you; you acted for the best, of course, and I own the case a difficult one; it is only a pity that my little girl should have considered it her duty to keep anything from me.'
'I told him it was Roy's secret, not mine,' murmured Polly, and he placed his hand kindly on her head.
'I do not see how she could have acted otherwise,' returned Mildred, rather indistinctly.