“Miss Hayes, I hope you will pardon me,” he said, “for intruding on you at this hour and in this way; but I felt that writing would be useless, and that I must see you face to face. I am sure I need not tell you how much I feel for your loss, nor how shocked I was to hear of Mrs. Hayes’s death. I believe I actually passed her funeral, when I imagined her to be alive and well.”
“Yes, you did. Won’t you sit down?” I said.
“We only heard the news last night. I was in hopes that my mother would have brought you back with her in the carriage to-day, insisted on your accompanying her. I told her she must take no refusal, but—but”—and he hesitated, and his eyes fell from mine—“I am greatly distressed to learn that you and she have had a most unfortunate misunderstanding—only a misunderstanding—it cannot be more. I know you both. I know my mother; she is absolutely incapable of giving offense; and I trust that I may say that I know you too.”
“You may, if you please. But sometimes I don’t know myself,” I answered recklessly.
“Perhaps you were not yourself to-day. I did not hear what occurred, only this, that my mother returned without you, and she assured me that you absolutely refused to receive any kindness at her hands.”
What garbled story had she laid before him? Should I tell him the truth? No; it would humiliate him, and he had always been most loyal to us.
“Is this correct?” he inquired, in a low voice.
“Yes. I need not enter into unpleasant details, for Lady Hildegarde is your mother. But she has hurt my feelings most deeply.”
“I’m afraid she has an unfortunate manner sometimes; but she means well. She has had a lot of trouble lately. My father has been ailing for a long time, and we have been most unlucky in some money matters, and she is worried and perhaps a little brusque and sharp. I wish you understood one another.”