“Yet there is one thing,” she replied, “being said of you in the town, which I think you should be told, Mr. Lindo. Your friends probably will not hear it, or, if they do, they will not venture to tell you of it.”
“Indeed,” he answered. “You pique my curiosity.”
“It is being commonly said,” she rejoined, looking down for the first time, “that you have no right to the living, and were appointed by some mistake, or—or fraud.”
He did not answer her at once. He was so completely taken by surprise that he stood looking at her with his mouth open. His first and better impulse was to laugh heartily. But what he did was to say in a very quiet way, “Indeed. That is being said, is it? It is quite true I had not heard it. May I ask, Miss Bonamy, if you had it from your father?”
If his tone had been cold before, it was freezing now. But she was not to be daunted, and she answered with considerable presence of mind, “I heard from my father that that was the report in the town, but I also heard him express his disbelief in the greater part of it.”
“I am much obliged to him,” said the rector through his closed teeth. “He did not think I had been guilty of fraud, then?”
“No, he did not,” Kate muttered, her voice faltering for the first time.
“Indeed. I am much obliged to him.”
He had received it even worse than she had expected. It was terrible to go on in the face of such scorn and incredulity. But to stop there was to have done only evil, as Kate knew, and she persevered. “I have one more thing I wish to say, if you will permit me,” she continued steadying her voice and striving to speak in as indifferent a manner as possible.
He bowed, his face hard and contemptuous.