"Yes; I have been turned away," she added, piteously.
"Turned away! Why, what for? Do you mean to say that you have left for good?"
She nodded, and commenced to dry her eyes with a little lace handkerchief.
"Yes--your mother--Lady Deringham has been very horrid--as though the silly papers were of any use to me or any one else in the world! I have not copied them. I am not deceitful! It is all an excuse to get rid of me because of--of you."
She looked up at him and suddenly dropped her eyes. Wolfenden began to see some glimmerings of light. He was still, however, bewildered.
"Look here," he said kindly, "why you are here I cannot for the life of me imagine, but you had better just tell me all about it."
She rose up suddenly and caught her gloves from the table.
"I think I will go away," she said. "I was very stupid to come; please forget it and---- Goodbye."
He caught her by the wrist as she passed.
"Nonsense," he exclaimed, "you mustn't go like this."
She looked steadfastly away from him and tried to withdraw her arm.
"You are angry with me for coming," she said. "I am very, very sorry; I will go away. Please don't stop me."
"Miss Merton!" She repeated his words reproachfully, lifting her eyes suddenly to his, that he might see the tears gathering there. Wolfenden began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.
"Well, Blanche, then," he said slowly. "Is that better?"
She answered nothing, but looked at him again. Her hand remained in his. She suffered him to lead her back to the chair.
"It's all nonsense your going away, you know," he said a little awkwardly. "You can't wonder that I am surprised. Perhaps you don't know that it is a little late--after midnight, in fact. Where should you go to if you ran away like that? Do you know any one in London?"
"Well, do be reasonable then. First of all tell me all about it."
She nodded, and began at once, now and then lifting her eyes to his, mostly gazing fixedly at the gloves which she was smoothing carefully out upon her knee.
"I think," she said, "that Lord Deringham is not so well. What he has been writing has become more and more incoherent, and it has been very difficult to copy it at all. I have done my best but he has never seemed satisfied; and he has taken to watch me in an odd sort of way, just as though I was doing something wrong all the time. You know he fancies that the work he is putting together is of immense importance. Of course I don't know that it isn't. All I do know is that it sounds and reads like absolute rubbish, and it's awfully difficult to copy. He writes very quickly and uses all manner of abbreviations, and if I make a single mistake in typing it he gets horribly cross."