“Oh, yes!” said Mrs Hallam hastily, as if to check any allusion to assistance. “When I recovered from my serious illness I was anxious to leave Castor. I thought perhaps that my child’s education—in London—and Mr Bayle was very kind in helping me.”
“He is a good friend,” said Sir Gordon gravely.
“Friend!” cried Mrs Hallam, with her face full of animation, “he has been to me a brother. When I was in utter distress at that terrible time, he extricated my poor husband’s money affairs from the miserable tangle in which they were left, and by a wise management of the little remainder so invested it that there was a sufficiency for Julia and me to live on in this simple manner.”
“He did all this for you,” said Sir Gordon dryly.
“Yes, and would have placed his purse at my disposal, but that he saw how painful such an offer would have been.”
“Of course,” said Sir Gordon, “most painful.”
“I often fear that I did wrong in allowing him to leave Castor; but he has done so much good here that I tell myself all was for the best.”
And so the conversation rippled on, Julia sometimes being drawn in, and now and then Bayle throwing in a word; but on the whole simply looking on, an interested spectator, who was appealed to now and then as if he had been the brother of one, the uncle of the other.
At last Sir Gordon rose to go, taking quite a lingering farewell of Julia, at whom he gazed again in the same wistful manner.
“Good-bye,” he said, smiling tenderly at her, while holding her little hand in his. “I shall come again—soon—yes, soon; but not to bring you a doll.”