There was something in this speech which made Gerard’s heart leap up. “Rachel likes you.” He was sure that there was no deceit, no pretense, about this charming schoolgirl, that what she said came naturally to her lips from her own knowledge, and he was touched and surprised to hear the confidence with which she spoke. It was almost as if she looked upon Gerard as a sort of possession of the family, to be greeted and treated as such.
“I’ve been waiting here ever so long,” said she, with a sigh; “and I am so glad you’ve come to talk to me! Lady Jennings is out, and so is Rachel, and I’ve been amusing myself as well as I could with the papers the man brought me, and with looking out of the window. But it’s so dull, and such a shame to have to waste one’s time like that when I so seldom come to town!”
“Didn’t they expect you?” asked Gerard, in surprise.
A sort of hesitancy appeared in the girl’s manner.
“Why no,” she said. “Something happened this morning that seemed odd to Miss Graham—that’s the schoolmistress. A gentleman called to see me, and asked questions about Rachel, and didn’t give his name; and as one of the junior mistresses was coming up, Miss Graham said I had better come too, and see Rachel and Lady Jennings about it.”
A horrible fear, of a kind to which he was now getting used in matters that concerned Rachel Davison, assailed his heart at these words. Who could the mysterious gentleman be who had come on such a strange errand, not to Rachel herself, but to her younger sister, a mere schoolgirl?
“You did quite right in coming,” he said, after a short pause. “It does seem an odd sort of thing to happen.”
“Yes,” replied she innocently. “Although he did not give his name, Miss Graham took it for granted, from the way he spoke, that he was some relation or old friend of ours, until he saw me; and then, when I didn’t recognize him, and he said merely that he was an old friend of our father’s, she began to think it rather strange. However, I’m bound to say he was very nice, and that I was quite glad to see him; and if Miss Graham hadn’t thought it odd, I don’t know that I should have done so. Why shouldn’t an old friend of my father’s come and see me?”
“Why, the strange part of it was his not giving his name, of course,” said Gerard.
“Yes, I suppose so. He looked like a military man, with his white mustache and way of holding himself; and most of our old friends are or were in the army. So I asked him and he said ‘Yes,’ and that he had been in the army some years ago. That was all. But very likely Rachel will know more about him.”