Full text. During a group excursion to a picnic, Wilmerding quite innocently goes for a walk with Veronica, the eldest daughter of Mrs Goldie. They are missing from the main group for some time. But in the nineteenth century the social conventions for contact between men and women were so tightly controlled that for a single woman to be alone with a single man - out of any supervision by a chaperone, a family friend, or any other third party - was considered to be a potential blot upon her reputation.