‘And what was the other person’s name?’

‘I can’t even remember that at the present moment.’

‘Mrs Askerton was a Miss Oliphant.’

’That wasn’t the other lady’s name.  But, independently of that, they can’t be the same.  The other lady married a Mr Berdmore.’

‘A Mr Berdmore!’ Clara as she repeated the name felt convinced that she had heard it before, and that she had heard it in connexion with Mrs Askerton.  She certainly had heard the name of Berdmore pronounced, or had seen it written, or had in some shape come across the name in Mrs Askerton’s presence; or at any rate somewhere on the premises occupied by that lady.  More than this she could not remember; but the name, as she had now heard it from her cousin, became at once distinctly connected in her memory with her friends at the cottage.

‘Yes,’ said Belton; ’a Berdmore.  I knew more of him than of her, though for the matter of that, I knew very little of him either.  She was a fast-going girl, and his friends were very sorry.  But I think they are both dead or divorced, or that they have come to grief in some way.’

‘And is Mrs Askerton like the fast-going lady?’

’In a certain way.  Not that I remember what the fast-going lady was like; but there was something about this woman that put me in mind of the other.  Vigo was her name; now I recollect it a Miss Vigo.  It’s nine or ten years ago now, and I was little more than a boy.’

‘Her name was Oliphant.’

’I don’t suppose they have anything to do with each other.  What riled me was the way she talked of the shooting.  People do when they take a little shooting.  They pay some trumpery thirty or forty pounds a year, and then they seem to think that it’s almost the same as though they owned the property themselves.  I’ve known a man talk of his manor because he had the shooting of a wood and a small farm round it.  They are generally shop-keepers out of London, gin distillers, or brewers, or people like that.’

’Why, Mr Belton, I didn’t think you could be so furious!

‘Can’t I?  When my back’s up, it is up!  But it isn’t up yet.’

‘And I hope it won’t be up while you remain in Somersetshire.’

’I won’t answer for that.  There’s Stovey’s empty cart standing just where it stood yesterday; and he promised he’d have it home before three today.  My back will be up with him if he doesn’t mind himself.’

It was nearly six o’clock when they got back to the house, and Clara was surprised to find that she had been out three hours with her cousin.  Certainly it had been very pleasant.  The usual companion of her walks, when she had a companion, was Mrs Askerton; but Mrs Askerton did not like real walking.  She would creep about the grounds for an hour or so, and even such companionship as that was better to Clara than absolute solitude; but now she had been carried about the place, getting over stiles and through gates, and wandering through the copses, till she was tired and hungry, and excited and happy.  ’Oh, papa,’ she said, ‘we have had such a walk!’