"You have come, my dear, and I am glad of it," she says in a mysterious tone. "He has been asking for you incessant. Miss Amherst, she is away from home." This in a pleased, confidential tone, Miss Amherst being distinctly unpopular among the domestics, small and great. "Mr. Amherst he sent her to the Latouches' for a week,—against her will, I must say. And the captain, he has gone abroad."
"Has he?" Surprised.
"Yes, quite suddent like, and no one the wiser why. When last he come home, after being away a whole day, he seemed to me daft like,—quite," says Mrs. Nesbitt, raising her eyes and hands, whose cozy plumpness almost conceals the well-worn ring that for twenty years of widowhood has rested there alone, "quite as though he had took leave of his senses."
"Yes?" says Molly, in a faltering tone, feeling decidedly guilty.
"Ah, indeed, Miss Massereene, and so 'twas. But you are tired, my dear, no doubt, and a'most faint for a glass of wine. Come and take off your things and rest yourself a bit, while I tell Mr. Amherst of your arrival."
In half an hour, refreshed and feeling somewhat bolder, Molly descends, and, gaining the library door, where her grandfather awaits her, she opens it and enters.
As, pale, slender, black-robed, she advances to his side, Mr. Amherst looks up.
"You have come," he says, holding out his hand to her, but not rising. There is a most unusual nervousness and hesitancy about his manner.
"Yes. You wrote for me, and I came," she answers simply, stooping, as in duty bound, to press her lips to his cheek.
"Are you well?" he asks, scrutinizingly, struck by the difference in her appearance since last he saw her.