’I think so.  Again we must wait.  Poor Wilfrid! from my heart I feel for you!’

It was decided that Wilfrid should remain in Dunfield for a day or two, till news might be obtained.  News came, however, sooner than was anticipated.  In the afternoon a letter was delivered, posted by Emily at Pendal in the morning.  She wrote to Mrs. Baxendale to say that she had left to take a place in a school; then continued: 

’I have a reason for leaving suddenly.  A reason you will understand.  I should have come to say good-bye to you yesterday, but something happened to prevent me.  The same reason has decided me to keep secret even from you, my dear and honoured friend, the place to which I am going; in time you shall hear from me, for I know I cannot have forfeited your love, though I fear I have given you pain.  Think of me with forbearance.  I do what I must do.’

That was all.  No word for Wilfrid.

‘This proves it,’ Wilfrid said, with bitter coldness.  ’All she says is false.  She does what she is ashamed of, and lies to conceal it for a few days or weeks.’

‘Do not let us even yet be sure,’ said Mrs. Baxendale, who was recovering her calmer judgment.

’I am sure!  Why should she keep the place secret?  She fears that I should follow her?  Could she not anywhere keep me off by her mere bidding?  Have I been brutally importunate?  What secret can exist that she might not disclose to me—­that she was not bound to disclose?  I thought her incapable of a breath of falsehood, and she must have deceived me from the first, from the very first!’

Wilfrid, that is impossible.  I cannot abandon my faith in Emily.  New you speak in this way, it convinces me that we are wrong, utterly and foolishly mistaken.  I believe what she says here; she has not gone with him

Wilfrid laughed scornfully.

’It is too late; I can’t twist my belief so quickly.  I do not need that kind of comfort; far easier to make up my mind that I have always been fooled—­as I have!’

He was beyond the stage at which reasoning is possible; reaction, in full flood, beat down the nobler features of his mind and swamped him with the raging waters of resentment.

So here was a myth well on its way to establishment.  For no one could afford Mrs. Baxendale satisfactory news of Dagworthy.  She would not take the only step which remained, that of openly avowing to his partner the information she desired to obtain, and getting him to make inquiries his partner appeared to be the only person in direct communication with Dagworthy.  It had to be remembered that Emily’s own statement might be true; she must not be spoken of lightly.  It was said that Mr. Legge, the partner, pooh-poohed the idea that Dagworthy was secretly married.  But Mr. Legge might know as little as other people.