Late in the evening Mr. Renford returned. He sent for Felicia at once, and interviewed her in his study. He had spent the day in Bristol, he explained, and had verified her statements.
"I have seen Mrs. M'Cosh, and have brought back all your possessions," he said. "In future, your home will be here, and I hope you will be a good, obedient girl. I think you are a truthful one. To-morrow I will introduce you to your aunt and cousins, and to your Uncle Guy—"
"Oh, I have seen him!" Felicia interposed quickly.
"Seen him?" he echoed. "Whom?"
"Uncle Guy. We—we had a long talk together, and I had dinner—lunch, I mean—with him in his sitting-room. I—I did not know I had an uncle before to-day."
"No? Then your mother told you nothing about your father's relations?"
She shook her head. "Did Mrs. M'Cosh send me no message?" she asked wistfully.
"Let me see. Yes. She sent her best respects, and desired me to assure you she would see your mother's grave was not neglected. By the way, I settled with her for the expenses of your mother's funeral, so you are no longer under any obligation to her on that account. She would take nothing else from me."
Mr. Renford looked a little annoyed as he spoke; he would have liked to have drawn a cheque for an amount which he would have considered sufficiently large to pay Mrs. M'Cosh for all the trouble she had been put to in connection with his grand-daughter, but he had not been allowed to do that. Felicia was beginning to thank him for what he had done, when he cut her short, and dismissed her.
Immediately she was out of his sight and the study door closed behind her, she flew upstairs to her own room, where she spent the next half-hour in unpacking her box, which she found awaiting her. She put her clothes away in the wardrobe, wondering what the servants would think of them, for they were patched and darned, and of the cheapest quality. Then she shed some tears over her mother's Bible, which she placed on the table by the bedside, meaning to use it herself for the future, and sobbed bitterly at the sight of her mother's workbox, containing the simple tools which had helped to earn their daily bread.