“How can you manage that?” asked Ludovic wonderingly.
“I should have to go away, anyhow, to be received. There is no Catholic Church anywhere very near Porthlew. And Father Anselm suggests that I should stay at a convent where they take lady boarders, somewhere between us and London, as he will be coming down there to give a Retreat, which I should make.”
She spoke with all the decision of which her gentle tones were capable, and Ludovic realized that she had very definitely made up her young mind. He wondered whether the instinct which he divined to be as strong in her now as in her twelfth year, of childish obedience and submission, would revive under contact with the masterful will of Bertha Tregaskis.
“Surely your guardian will at least want you to wait until you are of age?”
“Why should I? Hazel did not wait to be of age to get married.”
Her voice held defiance and Ludovic said gently:
“I am not venturing to condemn your decision. But my mother has had something to do with furthering it, and she would be very sorry, as you know, if it meant distress and difficulties for Mrs. Tregaskis.”
“Oh,” cried Frances, “I can’t bear to think of it. She has always been so very good to us, and you know Hazel’s marriage was a dreadful blow to her—it is still, because Guy doesn’t let Hazel see much of her—they’ve only been to Porthlew once, and Cousin Bertie hasn’t even seen the baby yet. But how can I help it?”
“It isn’t quite the same thing as though she were really your mother, perhaps,” Ludovic said kindly.
Frances coloured, and the lines of her soft mouth hardened again.