"Still," said Mrs. Esmond, "the pay cannot be very high, and it must be a wild country."
"It is quite sufficient for a lonely man, and now Grace—"
He stopped abruptly, a trifle flushed in face, and his companion smiled at him.
"Yes," she said, "I understand, and if it happens as we both wish I shall be content. Geoffrey has been a good son, but I could not expect to keep him always to myself—and I would rather it should be Grace than any one else."
"Thank you!" said Coulthurst simply. "Whether I have done right in allowing her to come here I do not know. In any case, I never suspected what might happen until a month ago. Then I was a trifle astonished, but the mischief was done."
Mrs. Esmond laughed, "You might have expressed it more happily, though it is perhaps only natural that there was a day or two when I would not have found fault with you."
Coulthurst said nothing further, but his thoughts were busy. He knew better than most men what life in the newer lands is, and he had no desire that Grace should share it with him. What she thought of Esmond he did not know; but the latter had told him what he thought of her, and his mother was, it seemed, content with the choice he had made. A good deal depended on the girl's fancy.
They had turned again when she came towards them across the lawn as though she did not see them, until, hearing their footsteps, she stopped abruptly. Nobody spoke for a moment or two, but she felt their eyes upon her, and the crimson grew deeper in her cheek as she turned to the elder lady.
"I see you know," she said, with a little tremor in her voice. "You will forgive me if he feels hurt over it—but I felt I could not. Geoffrey, of course, is——"
The major groaned inwardly when she stopped, and there was a sudden slight but perceptible change in his companion. Her face lost its usual gentleness, and became for a moment not hard or vindictive, but impressively grave.