‘Oh, no.  It is so fresh and pleasant.’

She began to read again, sitting on the lowest step of the ladder; he to write at the large old-fashioned writing-table close to the window.  There was a minute or two of profound silence, in which the rapid scratching of Osborne’s pen upon the paper was the only sound.  Then came a click of the gate, and Roger stood at the open door.  His face was towards Osborne, sitting in the light; his back to Molly, crouched up in her corner.  He held out a letter, and said in hoarse breathlessness,—­

’Here’s a letter from your wife, Osborne.  I went past the post-office and thought—­’

Osborne stood up, angry dismay upon his face.

‘Roger! what have you done!  Don’t you see her?’

Roger looked round, and Molly stood up in her corner, red, trembling, miserable, as though she were a guilty person.  Roger entered the room.  All three seemed to be equally dismayed.  Molly was the first to speak; she came forwards and said,—­

’I am so sorry!  You didn’t wish me to hear it, but I couldn’t help it.  You will trust me, won’t you?’ and turning to Roger she said to him with tears in her eyes,—­’Please say you know I shall not tell.’

‘We can’t help it,’ said Osborne, gloomily.  ’Only Roger, who knew of what importance it was, ought to have looked round him before speaking.’

‘So I should,’ said Roger.  ’I’m more vexed with myself than you can conceive.  Not but what I’m sure of you as of myself,’ continued he, turning to Molly.

‘Yes; but,’ said Osborne, ’you see how many chances there are that even the best-meaning persons may let out what it is of such consequence to me to keep secret.’

‘I know you think it so,’ said Roger.

’Well, don’t let us begin that old discussion again—­at any rate, not before a third person.’

Molly had had hard work all this time to keep from crying.  Now that she was alluded to as the third person before whom conversation was to be restrained, she said,—­

’I’m going away.  Perhaps I ought not to have been here.  I’m very sorry —­very.  But I will try and forget what I’ve heard.’

‘You can’t do that,’ said Osborne, still ungraciously.  ’But will you promise me never to speak about it to any one—­not even to me, or to Roger?  Will you try to act and speak as if you had never heard it?  I’m sure, from what Roger has told me about you, that if you give me this promise I may rely upon it.’

‘Yes; I will promise,’ said Molly, putting out her hand as a kind of pledge.  Osborne took it, but rather as if the action was superfluous.  She added, ’I think I should have done so, even without a promise.  But it is, perhaps, better to bind oneself.  I will go away now.  I wish I’d never come into this room.’

She put down her book on the table very softly, and turned to leave the room, choking down her tears until she was in the solitude of her own chamber.  But Roger was at the door before her, holding it open for her, and reading—­she felt that he was reading—­her face.  He held out his band for hers, and his firm grasp expressed both sympathy and regret for what had occurred.