"I should like very much, however, to hear all that story," rejoined Adam Gray, "and I am sure I would not say a word to any one. It is only for my own satisfaction I speak, and to know if my good master was right or wrong in what he said."
The old woman gazed for an instant down upon the ground, then turned her eyes upon the old man with a very strange expression, saying--"He was wrong, M. Gray; and I told him what was true. Yet, odd as it may seem, he was right too, and I deceived him. I will tell you what, you where always a good-hearted man, and a sensible one, and some day or another I'll tell you the whole story, but it sha'n't be now."
"It must be every soon, then," said Adam Gray, "for I am going to London in two days, and to the Continent immediately after."
"That will do!" cried the old woman--"that will do quite well."
"Do you mean when I come back again?" demanded Adam Gray. "Who can tell, good dame, when that may be? Who can tell whether it ever will be?"
"I don't mean that," said the old woman, somewhat peevishly, "but I mean that you are not likely to tell it again till I am dead and buried, and then you may tell it if you like; so you shall hear all before you go, if you will promise to keep it a secret, as I have done, till I be gone to join my husband and my son."
"Why, where are they?" Asked Adam Gray. "I thought you were a widow, Dame More. Did you leave your husband and your son in India?"
"Yes," replied the old woman, fixing her eyes upon the fire--"I left them in the grave."
The good old servant seemed somewhat shocked that he had called up such painful memories, and after remaining silent for a short time, Dame More, as he called her, went on--"There is many a thing, Mr. Gray," she said, "that I may weep for, and many a thing that I wish had gone otherwise; but there is only one thing that I repent, and that is what we are now talking about. If you will come to me to-morrow, however, I will tell you all about it, for I do wish some one person to know the thing besides myself. Your master is too young, or I would have told him; and Harry, my girl's husband, is too wild and not to be trusted; and if I told Jane herself, she would never keep it from her husband; so I will tell you, because I believe you have always been an honest man--I should like to know that Harry gets safe away first, however, for if that man persecutes him, I will stop him, or have vengeance."
"Vengeance!" observed the old man--"vengeance, my good dame, is like a sword without a hilt, sure to cut the hands of those that use it."