“Oh, Richard, do keep your temper!” implored Dorothy. “Can you not see that Mr. Allen desires to do us—to do you—a service?”
“Of that I am not so sure,” I replied.
“It is his way, Miss Manners,” said the rector, “and I hold it not against him. To speak truth, I looked for a worse reception, and came steeled to withstand it. And had my skin been thin, I had left ere now.” He took more snuff. “It was Mr. Dix,” he said to me slowly, “who informed Mr. Carvel of your presence in London.”
“And how the devil did Mr. Dix know?”
He did not reply, but glanced apprehensively at Dorothy.
And I have wondered since at his consideration.
“Miss Manners may not wish to hear,” he said uneasily.
“Miss Manners hears all that concerns me,” I answered.
He shrugged his shoulders in comprehension.
“It was Mr. Manners, then, who went to Mr. Dix, and told him under the pledge of secrecy.”