"You shall make me an exception to your rule, however, Elfie."
Fleda looked up, one of her looks half questioning, half fearing, and then answered, a little hesitating,
"I was afraid, sir, that if you went to Mrs. Evelyn's on that errand--I was afraid you would shew them you were displeased."
"And what then?" said he quietly.
"Only--that I wanted to spare them what always gives me a cold chill."
"Gives you!" said Mr. Carleton.
"No sir--only by sympathy--I thought my agency would be the gentlest."
"I see I was right," she said, looking up as he did not answer,--"they don't deserve it,--not half so much as you think. They talk--they don't know what. I am sure they never meant half they said--never meant to annoy me with it, I mean,--and I am sure they have a true love for me; they have shewn it in a great many ways. Constance especially never shewed me anything else. They have been very kind to me; and as to letting me come away as they did, I suppose they thought I was in a greater hurry to get home than I really was--and they would very likely not have minded travelling so themselves; I am so different from them that they might in many things judge me by themselves and yet judge far wrong."
Fleda was going on, but she suddenly became aware that the eye to which she was speaking had ceased to look at the Evelyns, even in imagination, and she stopped short.
"Will you trust me, after this, to see Mrs. Evelyn without the note?" said he smiling.