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.