“I’m afraid that she’s giving Jack a great deal of deliberate encouragement.  Even her servants believe that he regards himself as engaged to her.”

“What absolute nonsense!” exclaimed Radmore vigorously.  “Why, if it comes to that, Rosamund’s quite as much at The Trellis House as Jack is, and even I go there very often!”

“Yes, I know you do; at one time you were first favourite,” said Miss Pendarth coolly.

She had never been lacking in courage.

“And yet I can assure you,” he exclaimed in a challenging tone, “that I, at any rate, am not at all in love with Mrs. Crofton.”

“Sit down, Godfrey.  There’s something I want to ask you.”

Unwillingly he obeyed.

“I think you knew Colonel Crofton?”

“Yes, and I liked him very much.”

“I’m afraid from what I’ve heard that she wasn’t a particularly good wife to him.”  Radmore was surprised at the feeling in her voice, but he asked himself irritably how the devil had Miss Pendarth heard anything of the Croftons and their private affairs?

He got up again, feeling vexed with himself for having come in to Rose
Cottage.

She also rose from the stone seat.

“Stop just one moment, Godfrey.  I didn’t realize that you knew Mrs. Crofton as well as you seem to do.  I do beg of you to convey to her that she ought to be more prudent.  I’m quite serious as to the talk about Jack Tosswill.  They seem to have gone on a walk together yesterday afternoon, and the girl at the post-office, who is often sent long distances with telegrams and messages, saw them in the North Wood kissing one another.”

Godfrey uttered an exclamation of surprise and disgust.

How extraordinary that a woman of Miss Pendarth’s birth and breeding should listen to, and believe, low village gossip!

“Really,” he said at last, “that’s too bad!  I can’t understand, Miss Pendarth, how you can believe such a story—­” He nearly added, “or allow it to be told you!”

“I wouldn’t believe everybody,” she said in a low voice, “but I do believe Jane Nichol.  She’s a sensible, quiet, reserved girl.  She seems to have passed quite close to them, but they were so absorbed in themselves that they didn’t see her.  She told no one but her aunt, and her aunt told me.  I’m sorry to say I do believe the story, and I think you will agree that what may be sport to your pretty friend might mean lifelong bitterness to such a boy as Jack Tosswill.”  She added earnestly, “Can’t you say just a word to her?”

“Well, no, I don’t see how I can!  Still I promise you to try to do it if I get the chance.”

He felt sharply disturbed and annoyed, and yet he didn’t believe a word of that vulgar story!  Of course it was foolish of Enid Crofton to go for a long walk alone with Jack Tosswill.  That sort of thing was bound to make talk.  What would the village people think if they knew how often he, Radmore, and Mrs. Crofton had dined and lunched together during the three weeks that he had been there?  Thank Heaven, they didn’t know, and never would.