“You wrote a letter to a Miss Somebody; I saw it in the letter-rack.”
“Pooh! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer’s shop; and it was to tell her to keep my newspapers till I get back.”
“You needn’t have explained: it was not my business at all.” Miss Elfride was rather relieved to hear that statement, nevertheless. “And you won’t come again to see my father?” she insisted.
“I should like to—and to see you again, but——”
“Will you reveal to me that matter you hide?” she interrupted petulantly.
“No; not now.”
She could not but go on, graceless as it might seem.
“Tell me this,” she importuned with a trembling mouth. “Does any meeting of yours with a lady at Endelstow Vicarage clash with—any interest you may take in me?”
He started a little. “It does not,” he said emphatically; and looked into the pupils of her eyes with the confidence that only honesty can give, and even that to youth alone.
The explanation had not come, but a gloom left her. She could not but believe that utterance. Whatever enigma might lie in the shadow on the blind, it was not an enigma of underhand passion.