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"Well, I'm sure there's no need to hurry so," Mrs. Moyat declared, backing out of the room. "Blanche, you see if you can't persuade Mr. Ducaine. Father'll be home early this evening, too." "I think," Blanche said, "that Mr. Ducaine has made up his mind." She walked with me to the hall door, but she declined to shake hands with me. Her appearance was little short of tragic.
Moyat's remark was justified. We drove into his stable yard and clambered down. "You'll come in and have a bit of supper," Mr. Moyat insisted. I hesitated. I felt that it would be wiser to refuse, but I was cold and wet, and the thought of my fireless room depressed me.
She kept looking at me as though anxious that I should remember our common secret. More than once I was almost sorry that I had not let her speak. "You've had swell callers again," she remarked, as we sat side by side at supper-time. "A carriage from Rowchester was outside your door when I passed." "Ah, he's a good sort is the Duke," Mr. Moyat declared appreciatively. "A clever chap, too.
Bring Mr. Ducaine along, Blanche." I held out my hand. "I am sorry that I cannot stop, Mrs. Moyat," I said. "Good-afternoon, Miss Moyat." She looked me in the eyes. "You are not going," she murmured. "I am afraid," I answered, "that it is imperative. I ought to have been at Rowchester long ago. We are too near neighbours, though, not to see something of one another again before long."
"You know it isn't." "You give me credit for greater powers of divination than I possess," I answered calmly. "Your father was always very kind to me, and I can assure you that I have not forgotten it. But I have work to do now, and I have scarcely an hour to spare. Mr. Moyat would understand it, I am sure." The door was suddenly opened. Mrs. Moyat, fat and comely, came in.
"He didn't come, and you don't know anything about him. But, of course, if you want me to say nothing " She paused. I clutched her arm. "Miss Moyat," I said, "I have strong reasons for not wishing to be brought into this." "All right," she said, dropping her voice. "I will do as you ask." There was an absurd meaning in her little side-glance, which at another time would have put me on my guard.
"Why, I'm next door to a pauper." "There's such a thing," he remarked thoughtfully, "if one's a steady sort of chap, and means work, as picking up a girl with a bit of brass now and then." "I can assure you, Mr. Moyat," I said as coolly as possible, "that anything of that sort is out of the question so far as I am concerned.
"Well, well, mother, we won't quarrel about it," Mr. Moyat declared, rising from the table. "I must just have a look at the mare. Do you look after Mr. Ducaine, Blanche." To my annoyance the retreat of Mr. and Mrs. Moyat was evidently planned, and accelerated by a frown from their daughter. Blanche and I were left alone whereupon I, too, rose to my feet."
John, the woodman, was walking with unaccustomed briskness by the horses' heads, cracking his whip as he came. I looked into the girl's face by my side. "Miss Moyat," I said hoarsely, "can't you forget that you saw this man?" "Why?" she asked bewildered. "I don't want to be dragged into it," I answered, glancing nervously over my shoulder along the road.
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