“I don’t know what to say to it,” he thought; “Stonor ought to know; but somehow I feel as if he had not grasped my case. There, I will not trouble about that now.”
He kept the thoughts which troubled him from his brain for a time, but they soon forced themselves back with others.
“I wonder,” he mused, “what took place in the past? There must have been something. My father and mother must have known Captain Millet very intimately. He received his injury from some fall, and Dr Stonor saved his limb, I believe. But there’s a reticence about all that time which is aggravating. I suppose I must wait, and when I learn everything which puzzles me now, it will be only shadowy and vague. Only my mother always asks about the Captain with so tender a tone of respect. Ah, well! I must wait.”
At about the same time that John Huish was pondering over his state in connection with his love affairs, Renée Morrison called in her carriage for her sister, bore her off to where she thought they could be alone, and sent the carriage back. The place chosen was the Park, which, though pretty well thronged with people, seemed to them solitary, as they strolled across toward the Row.
Gertrude was very silent, for she felt that Renée had something important to say; but the minutes sped on, and their scattered remarks had been of the most commonplace character, and at last, as she glanced sideways, Gertrude saw that if her sister were to confide her troubles and be the recipient of those effervescing in her own breast she herself must speak.
“You do not confide in me, Renée dear,” she said tenderly, as they took a couple of chairs beneath one of the spreading trees. “Why do you not always make me more your confidant? One feels as if one could talk out here in the park, where there are no walls to listen. Come, dear, why do you not tell me all?”
“Because I feel that my husband’s secrets are in my keeping, and that I should be doing wrong to speak of what he does.”
“Not wrong in confiding in me, Renée. You are not happy. Oh, Ren, Ren, why did you consent? Trouble, and so soon!”
“Don’t talk to me like that, now, Gerty,” cried Renée in a low, passionate voice, “because it was mamma’s will that we should marry well and have establishments, and satisfy her pride. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had never been born.”
“Oh, Ren, Ren,” her sister whispered, pressing her hand. “But Frank—he is kind to you?”