The flush up to the eyes was Lesley's now; but she stood her ground bravely. 'It does not matter if I am or not; I am not going to talk of it. And I promised him----'
Grace broke in with a little peal of laughter, tender, amused, pathetic, yet acquiescent laughter. 'Has it got so far as that? Ah! Lesley dear! I'm so glad.'
The girl looked at her with a faint wonder, a great admiration, then shook her head.
'I believe you are made different from me,' she said soberly. 'I can only understand one thing about it all--how it was that he never forgot--well, never quite forgot. For there is nothing to be glad of, I can assure you--nothing at all.'
She did not, in truth, look as if there was; but Grace, as she took Sir George his tea, as she always did, had her eyes full of that mysterious gladness which any sentiment, even sorrow, brings to some women's faces. It suited hers, and so her husband's had quite a lover-like diffidence in it as he watched her fingering the thin gold chain with pink topazes hanging from it, which he took from a drawer.
'It was in that casket the police found,' he explained, 'and I told them, if no owner turned up for it, to send it for you to see, and then if you liked it----'
She looked up, smiling. 'It is too young for me. Yes! it is true, George, I am getting old--ever so old! But I'll tell you what we will do! If we can buy it, we will give it to Lesley as a wedding-present when she marries Mr. Raymond.'
Sir George sat back in his chair--perhaps she had meant that he should.
'My dear girl!' he said feebly, 'this is the first I have heard of it. Mr. Raymond! And I thought----'
'Never mind what you thought,' she put in decidedly: 'it isn't quite settled yet; but it is going to be. Oh yes! it is going to be!'