She took this letter down the next morning to put in the bag, but the postman had come and gone. As she stood in the hall holding the letter, Farringdon came up.
“Good morning,” he said. “You've missed the postman? I will be very happy to post it for you on my way to church.”
“Thank you. But if it's on the way to church, I'm going myself, so I needn't trouble you.”
Farringdon merely bowed, without saying anything banal about the absence of trouble. She was demurely conscious beneath his courtesy of the effort he was making to see her handwriting, and she wondered if he thought her refusal rude and a confirmation of his suspicion, or simply casual.
Whatever he thought, it did not prevent the steps as she came out a few hours later in the freshness of white muslin, with her umbrella, prayer-book, and an unobtrusive white envelope in her hands.
They were going together down then drive—under his umbrella—before she quite grasped the situation.
“We seem to be the only ones,” she hazarded.
“We are,” he nodded.
“Mrs. Manstey has a headache,” Edith said, “but the others—”
“The sun is too hot!”—he smiled.