‘Tell me everything; straightly, simply, fully.’
‘I will,’ replied Madame Bâlo, ‘and if I appear to blame in this unhappy story, you must remember I erred from want of thought. I believed that I was acting for the best.’
‘Most of our mistakes in this life are made under that delusion,’ said Maurice, with his grave smile.
‘You want to know how I came to be mixed up in Muriel’s love affair? First you must know that before he went to Eton, George Penwyn came to me to be prepared for a public school. I was a mere girl, and had only just set up my establishment for young ladies in those days, and I was very glad to give two hours every morning to the Squire’s little boy, who used to ride over to Seacomb on his Exmoor pony in the charge of a groom. A very dear little fellow he was at nine years old. I grounded him in French and Latin—and even taught him the rudiments of Greek during the year and a half in which I had him for a pupil, my own dear father having given me a thorough classical education: and, without vanity, I do not think many little lads went to Eton that year better prepared than George Penwyn. He was a grateful, warm-hearted boy, and he never forgot his old friend, or the old-fashioned garden with the big yellow egg-plums on the western wall. He came to see me many a time in his summer holidays, and afterwards when he was in the army. I never knew him to be three days at home without spending a morning with me. He was about the only young man I ever let come in and out of my house without restraint, for I knew he was the soul of honour.’
‘Did he first see Muriel Trevanard in your house?’
‘No, he was abroad at the time Muriel was with me. My first knowledge of his acquaintance with Muriel, and of his love for her, came from his own lips, and came to me as a surprise.’
Madame Bâlo paused, with a sigh, and then continued her story.
‘Captain Penwyn came to me one day, just before the Michaelmas holidays—it was about a year after Muriel had gone home for good—and asked me for half an hour’s private talk. Well do I remember that calm September afternoon, and his bright, eager face as he walked up and down together in the garden at Seacomb, by the sunny wall, where the last of the figs and plums were ripening. He told me he was madly in love with Muriel Trevanard—deeper in love than he had ever been in his life—in fact, it was the one true passion of his life. “I may have fancied myself in love before,” he said, “but this is reality.” I tried to laugh him out of his fancy, reminded him of the difference in station between himself and a tenant farmer’s daughter; asked him what his father would say to such an infatuation. “That’s what I’m here to talk about,” said George. “You know what my father is, and that I might just as well try to turn the course of those two rivers we used to read about when you were grinding me as to turn my father from his purpose. He has made up his mind that I am to marry land—he dreams of land, sleeping and waking—and spends half his time in calculating the number of his acres. If I refuse to marry land he will disinherit me, and one of my younger brothers will get Penwyn. Now you know how fond I am of Penwyn, and how fond all the people round Penwyn are of me; and you may imagine that it would be rather a hard blow for me to lose an estate which I have always looked upon as my birthright.”
‘“I should think so, indeed,” said I.
‘“But I love Muriel Trevanard better than house or land,” replied he, “and I would rather lose all than lose her.”’