In the room into which she led me we found a Miss Somebody--I didn't
catch the name,--an unobtrusive, even an indistinct, middle-aged person
in black. A companion. All very proper. She came and went and even sat
down at times in the room, but a little apart, with some sewing. By the
time she had brought in a lighted lamp I had heard all the details which
really matter in this story. Between me and her who was once Flora de
Barral the conversation was not likely to keep strictly to the weather.
The lamp had a rosy shade; and its glow wreathed her in perpetual
blushes, made her appear wonderfully young as she sat before me in a
deep, high-backed arm-chair. I asked:
"Tell me what is it you said in that famous letter which so upset Mrs.
Fyne, and caused little Fyne to interfere in this offensive manner?"
"It was simply crude," she said earnestly. "I was feeling reckless and I
wrote recklessly. I knew she would disapprove and I wrote foolishly. It
was the echo of her own stupid talk. I said that I did not love her
brother but that I had no scruples whatever in marrying him.
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