"I am sorry," said Ida in her low voice, leaving him to judge whether she expressed regret for our birthright of misery or the lateness of the train. "Will you have some lunch—some wine?" she asked, a dull, vague wonder rising in her mind that this grim, middle-class man should be of kith and kin with her dead father.
"Thank you; no. I had an abernethy biscuit at the station." He drew back from, and waved away, the tray of wine which Jason at this moment brought in. "I never touch wine. I, and all mine, are total abstainers. Those who fly to the wine-cup in moments of tribulation and grief rely on a broken reed which shall pierce their hand. I trust you do not drink, Cousin Ida?"
"No—yes; sometimes; not much," she replied, vaguely, and regarding him with a dull wonder; for she had never seen this kind of man before.
Mr. Wordley poured out a glass of wine, and, in silent indignation, handed it to her; and, unconscious of the heavy scowl with which Mr. John Heron regarded her, she put her lips to it.
"A glass of wine is not a bad thing at any time," said the old lawyer; "especially when one is weakened and prostrated by trouble. Try and drink a little more, my dear."
"It is a matter of opinion, of conviction, of principle," said Mr. John Heron, grimly, as if he were in the pulpit. "We must be guided by the light of our consciences; we must not yield to the seductive in fineness of creature comfort. We are told that strong drink is raging—" This was rather more than Mr. Wordley could stand, and, very red in the face, he invited Mr. John Heron to go up to the room which had been prepared for him.
When that gentleman had stalked out, the old lawyer looked at Ida with a mixture of dismay and commiseration.
"Not a—er—particularly cheerful and genial person, my dear; but no doubt Mr. John Heron is extremely conscientious and—er—good-hearted."
"I daresay," assented Ida, apathetically. "It does not matter. It was very kind of him to come so far to—to the funeral," she added. "He might have stayed away, for I don't think my father knew him, and I never heard of him. Is it not time yet?" she asked, in a low voice.
As she spoke, Jessie came in and took her upstairs to her room to put on the thick black cloak, the bonnet with its long crape veil, in which Ida was to follow her father to the grave; for in spite of Mr. Wordley's remonstrances, she had remained firm in her resolve to go to the church-yard.