'And still——'
'Sit down here beside me, Tom.' She pushed back the hair from his forehead and looked tenderly into his dark eyes. She was thinking of the past. For the moment the last few dreadful weeks—that chasm between the old life and the new—were blotted out. He was the boy he had been then, and she was his mother, understanding him as no one else did, and thinking of his friendship with a little motherly glow of satisfaction and pride.
'I will tell you the whole truth,' she went on. 'We were on your side—Grace and I. We believed we understood you better than the others; and—it seems a strange thing to say, but it is really true—if you had spoken a little earlier, you might have won our dear girl then. The news of your wealth made the General afraid. You see it was a wonderful change, and these changes of condition will sometimes show the character in such different lights. That is what the General said, at least. Then our dear girl, who, you know, is sensitive, heard some unkind and stupid gossip. It was rather about us than her; but it annoyed her all the more. It is an old story now,' said Lady Elton, the pink colour mantling her face, 'and I only tell you because Grace wished you to know everything. The silly people said we had known all about it long ago—that you would be rich, I mean—and that was why we had taken the cottage, and brought the dear girls next door to you and your mother. It was absurd, of course; but Grace took fire, and the General, who, you know, was against it then, went with her. I argued that he should find out what our dear girl's own feeling was before he gave her his advice, for I had my suspicions, and God knows I would have braved the backbiting of malicious tongues, if it would have secured her happiness and yours; but—well! you know the General. He would not be the man he is—one of the finest soldiers that ever lived—if he was not pretty firm in his own opinion. But what he has seen and heard of you in this dreadful year, what he knows of you, Tom, has changed all that. If our dear child——'
'Why do you hesitate?' said Tom hoarsely.
She paused for a few seconds, as if a wave of feeling too strong to be controlled had swept over her, and then she laid her hand gently on his. 'Will you tell me how it all happened—exactly?' she said pleadingly.
'How we found them, do you mean?'
'Yes.'
He gave the story clearly and rapidly, from the moment when he left Gumilcund for Dost Ali Khan's fort, to that when he saw Grace and Kit in the hermit's hut, and was assured by Bâl Narîn that they were alive. He said as little about himself as he could, and nothing whatever about his feelings. It was a plain record of facts. The story over, he stopped. 'Mother,' he said earnestly, 'I have told you all I can. It is your turn now. You have seen my darling'—his voice broke—'you who know her so much better than any of us—tell me what you think.'
She turned a little away, and looked up into the quivering branches of mimosa. A little striped squirrel was leaping gaily from branch to branch. Above, in the blue sunlit air, black and white mynas were darting. Tiny feathered creatures, bright as living gems, were flashing hither and thither through the light foliage. Ah! how peaceful: how happy, they all were! For a moment she could not speak. Nature, with her thousand joyous voices, seemed to be mocking at her pain. In the next moment she became conscious of those strained-looking, agonised eyes, and said faintly, 'I hope.'
'Is that all you can say?' asked Tom.