“She will talk to you,” he said, as we threaded a long, dimly lighted corridor. “Do not fear. She is a good friend though a hard woman. I have let her know what I have already told you. She will tell you what else there is to be known.”
In answer to Pierre’s knock a soft voice bade me enter. It was not such a voice as would suggest the “hard woman” of Pierre’s description. It was the tender, feeling voice I had heard when Lady Marmaduke spoke to the people about her husband—when she spoke to them tremblingly, straight from the bottom of her heart. Pierre thrust aside the drapery of the door and I stepped into the room alone.
Lady Marmaduke was in the farther end of it, half leaning, half sitting upon the arm of a chair. One hand rested against her hip, the other shaded her eyes while she watched my entrance. I had not taken three steps before she rose and came forward to greet me with kindness. Even in the half light of the room I could catch the sweet expression of her face. Despite the sorrow in my heart, I noticed how tall and straight she was, and how well formed. Though her face looked sweet and soft, when she took my hand she gripped it with the strength of a man, looking me withal squarely in the face as if she would read me through and through.
“Sit down,” she said with a firm air of command. The very tone of her voice was soothing and made me want to do her will. When I had obeyed her, she seated herself by my side and took my hand again. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-five,” I answered mechanically, for I was still half dazed.
“Then I shall call you Michael, for we are to be good friends and I am old enough to be your mother. Pierre has told me about you and what it is you want. It is sad news I have to tell you, sadder news than his; yes, much sadder. But I should not hold back. You are a brave man, are you not?”
She paused and cast her eyes upon the floor. In spite of her assertion that she should not hold back, she found her task a hard one, and she was loth to begin it. “I think I have seen you before. Were you not with the dominie when I found Pierre?”
I nodded and for a while we were both silent.
“Madam,” I said at length. “Anything is better than suspense.”
“Poor child,” she murmured tenderly.