reflected that perhaps Miss Birdseye wouldn't be there, so many months
later, to see how it was her supposed consort had spoken. She might,
therefore, be left to believe what she liked to believe, without fear of
a day of reckoning. Verena committed herself to nothing more
confirmatory than a kiss, however, which the old lady's displaced
head-gear enabled her to imprint upon her forehead and which caused Miss
Birdseye to exclaim, "Why, Verena Tarrant, how cold your lips are!" It
was not surprising to Verena to hear that her lips were cold; a mortal
chill had crept over her, for she knew that this time she should have a
tremendous scene with Olive.

She found her in her room, to which she had fled on quitting Mr.
Ransom's presence; she sat in the window, having evidently sunk into a
chair the moment she came in, a position from which she must have seen
Verena walk through the garden and down to the water with the intruder.
She remained as she had collapsed, quite prostrate; her attitude was the
same as that other time Verena had found her waiting, in New York. What
Olive was likely to say to her first the girl scarcely knew; her mind,
at any rate, was full of an intention of her own. She went straight to
her and fell on her knees before her, taking hold of the hands which
were clasped together, with nervous intensity, in Miss Chancellor's lap.
Verena remained a moment, looking up at her, and then said:

"There is something I want to tell you now, without a moment's delay;
something I didn't tell you at the time it happened, nor afterwards. Mr.
Ransom came out to see me once, at Cambridge, a little while before we
went to New York. He spent a couple of hours with me; we took a walk
together and saw the colleges. It was after that that he wrote to
me--when I answered his letter, as I told you in New York. I didn't tell
you then of his visit. We had a great deal of talk about him, and I kept
that back. I did so on purpose; I can't explain why, except that I
didn't like to tell you, and that I thought it better. But now I want
you to know everything; when you know that, you _will_ know everything.
It was only one visit--about two hours. I enjoyed it very much--he
seemed so much interested. One reason I didn't tell you was that I
didn't want you to know that he had come on to Boston, and called on me
in Cambridge, without going to see you. I thought it might affect you
disagreeably. I suppose you will think I deceived you;