"Did you want anything?"
"Only to—to remind you, ma'am, it is not wise to sit up so late."
"Only that?" said Mary, laughing. "I do that every night, alone with
God; and I do not think He will be the farther off for your being here!"
"One thing I had to ask," said Grace. "It would lesson my labour so, if you could give me any hint of where he might be."
"We know, as we told you, as little as you. His letters are to be sent to Constantinople. Some from Aberalva are gone thither already."
"And mine among them!" thought Grace. "It is God's will!… Madam, if it would not seem forward on my part—if you could tell him the truth, and what I have for him, and where I am, in case he might wish—wish to see me—when you were writing."
"Of course I will, or my father will," said Mary, who did not like to confess either to herself or to Grace, that it was very improbable that she would ever write again to Tom Thurnall.
And so the two sweet maidens, so near that moment to an explanation, which might have cleared up all, went on each in her ignorance; for so it was to be.
The next morning Grace came down to breakfast, modest, cheerful, charming. Mark made her breakfast with them; gave her endless letters of recommendation; wanted to take her to see old Doctor Thurnall, which she declined, and then sent her to the station in his own carriage, paid her fare first-class to town, and somehow or other contrived, with Mary's help, that she should find in her bag two ten-pound notes, which she had never seen before. After which he went out to his counting-house, only remarking to Mary—
"Very extraordinary young woman, and very handsome, too. Will make some man a jewel of a wife, if she don't go mad, or die of the hospital fever."