‘Is the old grandmother living still?’ asked Matthew, suddenly.
‘What, blind old Mrs. Trevanard? Yes, she is still living. But you said you did not know the Trevanards.’
‘Only by repute. I heard people talk about them. Rather a curious family, I fancy.’
‘In some respects,’ answered Maurice, puzzled by the comedian’s manner. It seemed as if he were affecting to know less about the family at Borcel End than he really knew. Yet why should he conceal so simple a circumstance as his acquaintance with the Trevanards?
When Maurice and Justina were alone together for a short time next day, the girl questioned her companion about his visit to Penwyn Manor.
‘I want you to describe the old place,’ she said. ‘I cannot think of it without pain. Yet I like to hear of it. Please tell me all about it.’
Maurice obeyed, and gave a detailed description of the grave old mansion, as he had seen it that summer afternoon.
‘How happy he would have been there!’ said Justina. ‘How bright and fair that young life would have been! I am not thinking of my own loss,’ she said, as if in answer to an unspoken question of Maurice’s. ‘I never forgot what you said about unequal marriages that evening at Eborsham, when you came in and found me in my grief, and spoke some hard truths to me. I felt afterwards that you were wiser than I; that all you said was just and true. I should have been a basely selfish woman if I had taken advantage of his foolish impulsive offer—if I had let the caprice of a moment give colour to a life. But believe me, when I let myself love him, I had no thought of his worldly wealth. It was his bright kind nature that drew me to him. No one had ever spoken to me as he spoke. No one had ever praised me before. It was a childish love I gave him, perhaps, but it was true love, all the same.’
‘I believe that, Justina. I believed it then when I saw you, little more than a child, so faithfully sorry for my poor friend’s fate. If I had known you better in those days I should not have called his love foolish. I should never have opposed his boyish fancy. I look back now at my self-assertive wisdom, and it seems to me a greater folly than James Penwyn’s unreasoning love.’
‘You must not say that,’ remonstrated Justina gently, ‘all that you said was spoken well and wisely; and if Providence had spared him, and if he had married me, he would have been ashamed of his actress-wife.’