“We kept it from you on purpose, auntie and I; we thought there was no use in worrying you and Mark, and all you could have said or done would not have been of the slightest use. All the waters in the sea would not have washed me white in the estimation of my charitable neighbours. When first I came here I was too miserable to notice anything; then for a long time I was very ill, as you know. It was fully a year before I became really alive to my position, as you would call it. Then auntie spoke to the rector, and he told her the truth--that it was said that Reginald had separated from me for very good reasons; and he asked her point-blank if we were on friendly terms. What could she say?”--with a gesture of appeal--“she told him the truth--that we were not, but that our difference was entirely a matter between ourselves, and did not concern the world at large. But, unfortunately for us, the world at large is deeply interested in our affairs. The rector believed auntie, I am sure, but no one else will listen to such an explanation for one second; and as it transpired through the servants and the post-office that I never received any Indian letters, but lots of English ones in a man’s hand--Geoffrey’s--my fate was sealed. I am considered a dreadful young person. Tell me, Helen,” putting on a most bewitching little hat, and looking at her mischievously with her head on one side, “do I _look_ very improper?” “Alice, how can you go on like this?” exclaimed her cousin hysterically. “How can you jest on such a subject? What an odd extraordinary girl you are; at one moment in the wildest spirits, at another in the depths of woe.” “You cannot accuse me of very wild spirits lately, at any rate, and you must not forget that I have Irish blood in my veins, and excuse my vagaries on that score. I can tell you that I surprise _myself_ very much at times.” “Alice! Alice!” shouted Geoffrey from downstairs. “There, I must be off. Do not look so dismal, my dear horrified Helen. Now that Reginald has come here, people will think better of me, you will see. Come along,” she continued, taking her arm and hurrying her down the corridor, and flying with her downstairs at a breakneck pace, “they are all waiting for us on the tennis-ground; even Mark is going to play.” “If you had not been so perverse, shutting yourself up, refusing to come to us in London, and living the life of a nun, these dreadful ideas would never have occurred to people,” panted Mrs. Mayhew breathlessly. “It was your own fault entirely, your _own_ fault,” she concluded emphatically, as they came within earshot of Geoffrey, who was waiting for them at the edge of the lawn.