The listener was paralysed.

‘Why have you kept this from me?’ he asked, indignation blending with his misery.

’Because it was no better than gossip and speculation.  I had no right to report such things—­at all events, so it seemed to me.  Now I am going to add something which may be the wildest error, but which cannot trouble you much if you imagine that the story is true.  Yesterday, just before I came home to find you here, I met Mr. Dagworthy by chance in a draper’s shop, and he told me that he was going away to-day, leaving England.’

‘To-day?’

‘Yes.  And I saw that he had been buying a box of ladies’ gloves.’

‘What do you mean?’ Wilfrid stammered out.

’I know that he has no female relatives—­except his wife’s, who live in another part of England, and are on bad terms with him.’

‘His wife—­you said?’

’His late wife; he is a widower.  Now we may be imagining in the silliest way, but—­’

‘But why—­’ Wilfrid checked himself.  ’Do I understand you?  You think Emily has gone with him—­has gone to be married to him?’

‘It is almost impossible seriously to think it.’

‘And you think she would shrink from being married here?’

‘For one or two reasons—­at all events, so soon.’

’But is it possible to believe that she deliberately deceived you—­made a pretence of seeking employment?’

’I can’t say.  She never gave me any details of what she was doing.  Another thing—­she would not come to stay with me after her mother’s funeral.  Mr. Dagworthy lives on the Heath, only just beyond Banbrigg.  You see to what things we can be led, if we begin interpreting shadows; but Emily is a mystery to me, and, as I have begun, I must gossip to you all I know.’

Mrs. Baxendale was certainly doing more in the way of gossiping conjecture than perhaps she had ever done before; the occasion excited her, and that coincidence of Dagworthy’s purchase, together with his departure this very day, struck her with a force which unsettled her usual balance of thought.  Wilfrid was as ready to believe; to him there was a certain strange relief in feeling that he had at length reached the climax of his sufferings.  He had only to give credence to Emily’s own words.  She had said that a change had come in her heart, in her life, and that she no longer loved him.  Understand it he of course could not, nor ever would, unless he lost all faith in woman’s honour.

‘But this can be either confirmed or refuted speedily,’ he exclaimed.  ’Can you not make inquiries of this Mr. Dagworthy’s friends?  If they know nothing yet, they will soon hear from him.’

’Yes, I can make such inquiries.  But he has a peculiar reputation in Dunfield; I think he scarcely has an intimate friend.’

’Well, there is, at all events, Emily herself.  If this story is baseless, she will be writing to you.’