Mrs. Frampton's eye was fixed upon her niece as Grace read this, but she did not wince. She folded the paper carefully, and returned it to her aunt.
"Thank you; it makes no difference—I am sure you did not expect that it would?—in my opinion. It would be the same if Mr. Lawrence lost his case. I know he is incapable of having used his influence with his uncle to induce him to alter his will."
"Humph! There are grave doubts whether it is not forged." Grace gave a little contemptuous smile. "I am told he has been given the cold shoulder at his club—one man cut him dead—and he goes nowhere."
"No; if he did, he would have come to us."
Mrs. Frampton pulled her needle so irritably through the canvas that the silk nearly snapped.
"Thank goodness he has not. If he had behaved like a gentleman, and come forward immediately his uncle died, it might be difficult to shake him off now. As it is, he cut the Gordian knot himself."
"We will not go over the old ground again, aunt. The trial is public property; I can't help hearing it discussed. But that question of his 'coming forward,' please, must never be spoken of. Just think how inconsistent you are, dear. You suggest that he forged; and then say he would have behaved like a gentleman if, having forged, he had 'come forward.' The fact is, Ivor Lawrence is a very proud, sensitive man. I believe the tenor of his uncle's will was a surprise to him, and when he was told it was to be disputed, and the charge that was to be made against him, he resolved to subject none of his friends to the ordeal of receiving a suspected man until the trial was over. And now, dear aunt, please let the subject be closed, as far as I am personally concerned. You are the only person who knows something of what I have suffered. But I have been lighter-hearted and braver since I left England. And why? Simply because time, instead of shaking my belief in the man whom all the world suspects, has made it stronger. At first his silence crushed me. If I thought my friend unworthy, I should still be crushed, far more than at first. But you see I am crushed no longer. Be content with that."
She had risen, and was standing before her aunt, who looked up, over her spectacles, literally dumfounded, until she felt two strong young arms flung round her neck and a shower of kisses upon her cheek. That was an argument she never could resist. She patted the girl's back with one fat, dimpled hand, while she wiped away a furtive tear with the other.
"God bless you, child! You are too good and noble—yes, too noble—for this wretched, miserable world of ours."
And so peace was restored between the two women, who, being very unlike, were yet warmly attached to each other.