The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
hither, and taxed me, moreover, with being the cause of your sudden appearance in this
place.
'Did you or did you not write to him about me,’ she
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asked me; and pressed the question home till I was forced to own that she had guessed
aright."
"You did well to tell her the truth,” said Fleetwood quietly. “It is much better that she
should know."
“Ah, but if you had seen her fury —I am trembling from it still. She called me a false
friend, and vowed that I had no business to spread slanders about her. How dared I, she
cried, bring you to a spot where her name was so calumniated? Then, in the same
breath, she vowed that if you must needs come here to spy and listen to tittle-tattle it
would serve you right if you heard more than you bargained for. And then she laughed
and clapped her hands, and declared that she was glad you had come — glad that your
precious susceptibilities would be so shocked. I sought to take her hand and to make her
hear reason, but she shook me off, calling me false and perjured; and all of a sudden
burst into tears, and cried that she had not a friend in the world. She was sobbing,
Cousin, when she left the house."
She looked piteously at Simon as she concluded her tale, and saw to her surprise that his
face had grown hard and stern. He made no immediate rejoinder, however, but after a
moment took his hat from the table, where he had laid it on entering, and then stretched
out his hand to her.
"Good-bye, Bertha," he said, “you have done your best, and I thank you."
"What will you do now, Simon?" Bertha was timidly beginning, but the words died
upon her lips as she glanced at his set face. He left her without further speech, and on
reaching the street bent his steps in the direction of Lady Susan Harding's house. The
words spoken so emphatically by Mrs. Fitzherbert that day were now ringing in his ears,
echoing in his heart: “You
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