"But if that fellow is shocked at the precautions she does take?"

"Oh who knows?" I rejoined with small sincerity. "I don't suppose
Iffield is absolutely a brute."

"I would take her with leather blinders, like a shying mare!" cried
Geoffrey Dawling.

I had an impression that Iffield wouldn't, but I didn't communicate it,
for I wanted to pacify my friend, whom I had discomposed too much for the
purposes of my sitting. I recollect that I did some good work that
morning, but it also comes back to me that before we separated he had
practically revealed to me that my anecdote, connecting itself in his
mind with a series of observations at the time unconscious and
unregistered, had covered with light the subject of our colloquy. He had
had a formless perception of some secret that drove Miss Saunt to
subterfuges, and the more he thought of it the more he guessed this
secret to be the practice of making believe she saw when she didn't and
of cleverly keeping people from finding out how little she saw. When one
pieced things together it was astonishing what ground they covered. Just
as he was going away he asked me from what source at Folkestone the
horrid tale had proceeded. When I had given him, as I saw no reason not
to do, the name of Mrs. Meldrum he exclaimed: "Oh I know all about her;
she's a friend of some friends of mine!" At this I remembered wilful
Betty and said to myself that I knew some one who would probably prove
more wilful still.