"It is I!" said Hugh, emerging from the summer-house. "I seem fated to be an eavesdropper, and yet I am not one by nature. Pardon me, young ladies!"
He was about to pass them with a formal bow, but Margaret, with a sudden inspiration, caught his arm. "No!" she cried, "I want you to hear what I am going to say. You, too, misunderstand—sit down, Hugh, and listen! Please!" she added, in the tone that seldom failed to win any heart.
Hugh hesitated, but finally sat down, looking very grim, and stared at the box-tree in front of him. Margaret went on, hurriedly, moved for once out of her gentle calm.
"This lady—I must speak plainly, though she is my friend—has lived a selfish, empty, idle life. She was very beautiful and very rich, really one of the great beauties and heiresses, and—and that was all. She was brought up by a worldly aunt—her mother died when she was little—and married to some one whom she cannot have cared for very much, I am afraid; and she never had any children. Then came all this ill health. Oh, Grace, I can't help it if it wasn't all real, she certainly has suffered a great deal; and through it all she has been alone, loving no one, and with no one to love her. She will not see any of her own people, cousins—she has no one nearer; she says they are all mercenary. I don't know, of course, but it is one of the terrible things about having a great deal of money, that you think everybody wants it, whether they do or not. Now, at last, before it was too late,—oh, I am so thankful for that,—the change has come. She has waked up, and it is all owing to you, Grace. Yes, it is! I have been fond of her, and she has petted me, and been very good to me, and given me things, but I never could open her eyes, try as I would. Now, you have done it, dear. You not only saved her life actually—yes, you did, Grace; she told me all about it; she never would have got out of that room alive but for you—you not only saved her life, but you have given her some idea of how to live. She wants to do something in return. It is the first time, I do believe, that she has wanted really to help some one else. When she gave me prettinesses, it was because it amused her to do it, not because I needed them, nor because she was thinking specially about me.
"Grace, if you refuse this; if you shut back the kindly impulse, the desire to help some one, I tell you you will be doing a wrong thing. It is nothing in the world but pride, selfish pride, that is speaking in you. Tell me again—tell Hugh, what Mrs. Peyton said to you when she went away."
"She said—" Grace's voice had not its usual cool evenness, but was husky, and faltered now and then—"she said, 'Do not refuse my last wish! I do not tell you what it is, for fear you should refuse at once, and shut me up with myself again. Do not refuse, for the sake of Christian kindness, of which I have known nothing hitherto, but which I mean to learn something about if I can.'"
"And then?"
"And then—she kissed me—Margaret, it is brutal of you to make me tell this!—she kissed me twice, and said—" Grace's voice broke. "I—cannot!" she faltered.
Margaret rose to her feet with a sudden impulse. "Hark!" she said. "Is that Uncle John calling me? Wait here, please, both of you!" and she ran off, never looking behind her. It was the first and last deceitful act of Margaret Montfort's life.
There was a long silence. Hugh Montfort stared at the box-tree. Grace cried a little, quietly; then wiped away her tears, not noticing them much, and observed an ant running along the path. At last, "Well?" said Hugh.