“The best of friends, Isabel, I hope,” he replied to her.
“I am going to ask you to do something for me,” she continued. “Will you sit down and listen to me? I am not sure that I do right in asking this favour of you, but you are the only one of my relatives whom I feel able to talk freely with, and I think I had rather you than any one else did this thing that I am going to ask. Perhaps you will find it too disagreeable; if so, tell me—you will promise to speak freely?”
“Certainly, I promise.”
They had taken their seats. Asquith rested one of his arms on a small table, and waited, the smile lingering. Isabel gathered the shawl about her, as if she felt cold. She was a trifle pale.
“You understand perfectly,” she resumed, with a certain abruptness, which came of the effort it cost her to broach the subject, “the meaning of Ada Warren’s presence in this house?”
“Perfectly, I think,” her cousin replied, with a slight motion of his eyebrows.
“That is to say,” pursued Isabel, looking at the fringe of her shawl, “you know the details of Mr. Clarendon’s will?”
He paused an instant before replying.
“Precisely,” was his word, as he tapped the table.
Isabel smiled, a smile different from that with which she was wont to charm. It was one almost of self-contempt, and full of bitter memories.