He saw that he had not been judicious, for there was, for the first time, a trace of hardness in the girl’s expression.
“He showed you that?” she asked.
“One small part of it,” assured Wyllard. “I want to say that when I first saw this house, and how you seemed fitted to it, my misgivings about Gregory’s decision troubled me once more. Now,”—and he made an impressive gesture—“they have vanished altogether, and they’ll never come back again.”
He spoke as he felt. This girl, he knew, would feel the strain; but it seemed to him that she had strength enough to bear it cheerfully. In spite of her daintiness, she was one who, in time of stress, could be depended on. He often remembered afterwards how they had sat together in the luxuriously furnished room, she leaning back in her big, low chair, with the soft light on her delicately tinted face. By and by he looked at her.
“It’s curious that I had your photograph ever so long, and never thought of showing it to Gregory,” he observed.
Agatha smiled. “I suppose it is,” she admitted. “After all, except that it might have been a relief to Major Radcliffe if he had met you sooner, the fact that you didn’t show it to Gregory doesn’t seem of any particular consequence.”
Wyllard was not quite sure of this. He had thought about this girl often, and certainly had been conscious of a curious thrill of satisfaction when he had met her at the stepping-stones. That feeling had suddenly disappeared when he had learned that she was his comrade’s promised wife. He had, however, during the last hour or two made up his mind to think no more of her.
“Well,” he declared, “the next thing is to arrange for Mrs. Hastings to meet you in London, or, perhaps, at the Grange. Her husband is a Canadian, a man of education, who has quite a large homestead not far from Gregory’s. Her relatives are people of station in Montreal, and I feel sure that you’ll like her.”
They decided that he was to ask Mrs. Hastings to stay a few days at the Grange, and then he looked at the girl somewhat diffidently.
“She suggests going in a fortnight,” he said.