Lady Grizell was pale, and the cheek she turned to his kiss was very cold. She clasped her hands to stay their trembling and began in a low voice:
“Donald! you said that if I would receive Mrs. Cochran——”
“Nelly, you mean!” interrupted the Hon. Donald.
“If I would receive your wife—you would let me keep Geordie. If I promise to ask you both to the Towers—twice every year—will you let me have him, instead of sending him to that horrible school—will you, Donald? I’ll educate him, he shall cost you nothing—I have a little money, you know, and Augustus is very generous to me—will you let him come to me?”
Donald looked rather shamefaced as he muttered: “Isn’t it rather like selling the little chap?”
“But it’s selling him into happiness, Donald: he is such a dear lad, and he loves me, and ... it isn’t very easy for me!”
There was silence for two minutes. Lady Grizell’s heart thumped in her ears.
Overhead there was a sudden patter of little feet, and Lady Grizell sank upon her knees, sobbing: “Oh, give him to me, Donald, for God’s sake, give him to me! I cannot bear it!”
Donald’s eyes were red as he raised his sister and gently put her in an easy chair. He patted her shoulder soothingly, and his voice trembled as he said: “Look here, Grizie! you shall have the boy. There shall be no bargain between us; I never meant to send him to that beastly school. I tried it on to fetch you—as it has—but I can’t play the game so low down as that—I don’t set up for a model parent. I know you’ll bring him up better than we should. You can leave this house without meeting my wife if you prefer it, and I’ll send Geordie to you to-morrow. But, if you like to do a kind and generous thing to a woman who has known little but unkindness, and shame, and sorrow all her life, and who is a good and loyal wife to me, then I say, God bless you, Grizell Cochran, for you are a good woman!”
Donald was not given to the making of long speeches. His voice broke many times in the course of this, and the tears were running down Lady Grizell’s pale cheeks. She held out her hands to him, saying simply, “Take me to her!” and the two tall figures went out across the grass together.