"Why should she? Doubtless to her such a detail seemed too insignificant to be worth recording."
This was not a very promising beginning, but there could be no drawing back now; whatever might be the result, he must go through with that which he had made up his mind to say.
"There may, perhaps, have been another and a totally opposite reason why Fan made no mention of Philip Winslade in her letter."
"What do you mean? The older you get, Louth, the fonder you become of beating about the bush when you have anything to say."
"That's your opinion, is it, my love?" he demanded, not without a shade of irritation. "Well, then, in what I am about to tell you there shall be no beating about the bush--none whatever. Here, in a few words, is the long and the short of it. Fan and young Winslade met on board the Parthenia, doubtless as old acquaintances, they having known each other for years. My sister being prostrated by sea-sickness, they were naturally thrown much together, and by the time Liverpool was reached had contrived to fall in love with each other, and come to some sort of a mutual understanding in the affair. Had Winslade and I not met in the train, it was his intention to have sought an interview with me in the course of Monday next."
Mrs. Sudlow's needle came to a halt midway in a stitch, and the line of her lips hardened till the division between them was scarcely perceptible.
There was a brief space of silence when the Vicar had brought his statement to an end. Then Mrs. Sudlow said in her chilliest accents: "And what, pray, might be Mr. Philip Winslade's purpose in seeking an interview with you on Monday next?"
"What purpose but one can a young man in such circumstances have? What he is anxious to obtain is my consent--or rather, I ought to say, our consent--to his engagement with Fanny. Indeed, he went so far as to put the question to me this afternoon; but of course I told him that it was impossible for me to give him an answer on the spur of the moment, or, in point of fact, till I had consulted with you in the matter."
"I fail to see why you could not have given him an answer on the spur of the moment, as you term it."
"Surely, surely, my dear, in a matter which so nearly concerns the welfare of our child, some little time for consideration is imperatively demanded."