“I wish I could help you, Paddy,” he burst out. “I wish I could help you all. If you only knew how I hate and loathe myself for having wasted all these years.”
“Poor Jack!” she said gently, and stroked the big brown hand.
“You must go now,” he said. “Your uncle is waiting in the library. Will you come out again afterward?”
“Yes. Wait for me by the boat-house,” and she turned away and crossed the churchyard.
In the library her uncle, a kindly, strong-faced man, was anxiously looking for her, and when she entered he glanced keenly into her face. He had been hearing a good deal about her from one and another during the last two or three days, and it was because of a plan he had in his mind that his glance held such searching interest.
“Did you want me, uncle?”
“Yes, dear.”
He hesitated, then went on: “You slipped away this afternoon the moment I had finished reading your father’s will, didn’t you?”
“Yes, uncle. Ought I have stayed?”
“It did not make any difference, my child, except that I must explain now what has passed since. You heard, I suppose, that your father lived almost entirely on his pension, and that the greater part of that ceased at his death?”