“It is not likely to be a secret if you have got hold of it,” said Ingram, sharply.
“I am very sorry,” said the boy. “I thought you were all anxious to know—”
“It does not matter in the least,” said Lavender quietly to both of them. “I shall not seek to disturb her. I am about to leave London.”
“Where are you going?” said the boy.
“I don’t know yet.”
That, at least, had been part of the result of his meditations; and Ingram, looking at him, wondered whether he meant to go away without trying to say one word to Sheila.
“Look here, Lavender,” he said, “you must not fancy we were trying to play any useless and impertinent trick. To-morrow or next day Sheila will leave your aunt’s house, and then I should have told you that she had been there, and how the old lady received her. It was Sheila’s own wish that the lodgings she is going to should not be known. She fancies that would save both of you a great deal of unnecessary and fruitless pain, do you see? That really is her only object in wishing to have any concealment about the matter.”
“But there is no need of any such concealment,” he said. “You may tell Sheila that if she likes to stay on with my aunt, so much the better; and I take it very kind of her that she went there, instead of going home or to a strange house.”
“Am I to tell her that you mean to leave London?”
“Yes.”