He flashed a look at her.

’What are you talking about?  Just speak plainly, will you?  What do you mean by “particular friend”?  I’m no more a friend of Eldon’s than you are, and I’ve made no bargain with him.’

‘I didn’t say you.’

‘Who then?’ he exclaimed sternly.

’Don’t you know?  Some one is so very proper, and such a fine lady, I shouldn’t have thought she’d have done things without your knowing.’

He turned pale, and seemed to crush the floor with his foot, that he might stand firm.

‘You’re talking of Adela?’

Alice nodded.

‘What about her?  Say at once what you’ve got to say.’

Inwardly she was a little frightened, perhaps half wished that she had not begun.  Yet it was sweet to foresee the thunderbolt that would fall on her enemy’s head.  That her brother would suffer torments did not affect her imagination; she had never credited him with strong feeling for his wife; and it was too late to draw back.

’You know that she met Mr. Eldon in the wood at Wanley on the day after she found the will?’

Mutimer knitted his brows to regard her.  But in speaking he was more self-governed than before.

‘Who told you that?’

‘My husband.  He saw them together.’

‘And heard them talking?’

‘Yes.’

Rodman had only implied this.  Alice’s subsequent interrogation had failed to elicit more from him than dark hints.

Mutimer drew a quick breath.

’He must be good at spying.  Next time I hope he’ll find out something worth talking about.’

Alice was surprised.

‘You know about it?’

‘Just as much as Rodman, do you understand that?’

‘You don’t believe?’

She herself had doubts.

’It’s nothing to you whether I believe it or not.  Just be good enough in future to mind your own business; you’ll have plenty of it before long.  I suppose that’s what you brought me here for?’

She made no answer; she was vexed and puzzled.

‘Have you anything else to say?’

Alice maintained a stubborn silence.

‘Alice, have you anything more to tell me about Adela?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

’Then you might have spared me the trouble.  Tell Rodman with my compliments that it would be as well for him to keep out of my way.’

He left her.

On quitting the house he walked at a great pace for a quarter of a mile before he remembered the necessity of taking either train or omnibus.  The latter was at hand, but when he had ridden for ten minutes the constant stoppages so irritated him that he jumped out and sought a hansom.  Even thus he did not travel fast enough; it seemed an endless time before the ascent of Pentonville Hill began.  He descended a little distance from his lodgings.

As he was paying the driver another hansom went by; he by chance saw the occupant, and it was Hubert Eldon.  At least he felt convinced of it, and he was in no mind to balance the possibilities of mistake.  The hansom had come from the street which Mutimer was just entering.