So, after some persuasion, Clifford allowed her to go.
And so Connie had come upon her in the drive, alone and palely loitering.
"You mustn't mind me coming to look for you, my Lady! But Sir Clifford worked himself up into such a state. He made sure you were struck by lightning, or killed by a falling tree. And he was determined to send Field and Betts to the wood to find the body. So I thought I'd better come, rather than set all the servants agog."
She spoke nervously. She could still see on Connie's face the smoothness and the half-dream of passion, and she could feel the irritation against herself.
"Quite!" said Connie. And she could say no more.
The two women plodded on through the wet world, in silence, while great drops splashed like explosions in the wood. When they came to the park, Connie strode ahead, and Mrs. Bolton panted a little. She was getting plumper.
"How foolish of Clifford to make a fuss!" said Connie at length, angrily, really speaking to herself.
"Oh, you know what men are! They like working themselves up. But he'll be all right as soon as he sees your ladyship."
Connie was very angry that Mrs. Bolton knew her secret: for certainly she knew it.
Suddenly Constance stood still on the path.
"It's monstrous that I should have to be followed!" she said, her eyes flashing.
"Oh! your Ladyship, don't say that! He'd certainly have sent the two men, and they'd have come straight to the hut. I didn't know where it was, really."
Connie flushed darker with rage, at the suggestion. Yet, while her passion was on her, she could not lie. She could not even pretend there was nothing between herself and the keeper. She looked at the other woman, who stood so sly, with her head dropped: yet somehow, in her femaleness, an ally.
"Oh well!" she said. "If it is so, it is so. I don't mind!"
"Why, you're all right, my Lady! You've only been sheltering in the hut. It's absolutely nothing."
They went on to the house. Connie marched in to Clifford's room, furious with him, furious with his pale, over-wrought face and prominent eyes.
