"Ambrose can go to school in a year or so," said Lady Rossiter hopefully.
"I suppose so, but the worst of it is that he really is delicate. Now, Ruthie is as strong as a horse, but then I never did like the idea of sending a little girl to school."
"I can't see any alternative," Edna said decidedly. "She will have to be properly educated, and a governess, in the circumstances, is out of the question."
"I suppose so," doubtfully answered Mark.
"It's very unlikely one could get a good daily one, down here, and a resident one—you're a young man still, Mark, and people would talk," said Edna, seizing instinctively on the aspect of the question that it would afford her the most enjoyment to discuss. Had Mark been less than extraordinarily single-minded, it would also have afforded him the maximum of discomfort in listening to her.
"You see, the circumstances are altogether exceptional, and make things very hard for you, I'm afraid. You are a married man still, and there are always dangers. Well, you know as well as I do that there are things one can't put into words," said Edna, with no intention of being taken au pied de la lettre.
"And Mark, there's another thing. Ruthie is old enough to begin asking questions about her poor mother. What are you going to do about telling her?"
"I don't know," Mark said simply. "I've never thought about it."
Lady Rossiter gave a sort of musical groan.
"For all one knows, servants and people may have told her already, and it should have been so tenderly, so delicately done!"