'Yes, she was very angry,' Mary answered, with a troubled look. 'I never saw her so angry—she was almost beside herself—said the harshest things to me—talked as if I had done some dreadful mischief.'
'Would she have been so moved, do you think, unless there was some fatal secret involved in that man's presence here?'
'I hardly know what to think. Tell me everything. What is it that you fear?—what is it that you suspect?'
'To tell you my fears and suspicions is to tell you a family secret that has been kept from you out of kindness all the years of your life—and I hardly think I could bring myself to that if I did not know what the world is, and how many good-natured friends Lady Hartfield will meet in society, by-and-by, ready to tell her, by hints and innuendoes, that her grandfather, the Governor of Madras, came back to England under a cloud of disgrace.'
'My poor grandfather! How dreadful!' exclaimed Mary, pale with pity and shame. 'Did he deserve his disgrace, poor unhappy creature—or was he the victim of false accusation?'
'I can hardly tell you that, Mary, any more than I can tell whether Warren Hastings deserved the abuse that was wreaked upon him at one time, or the acquittal that gave the lie to his slanderers in after years. The events occurred forty years ago—the story was only half known then, and like all such stories formed the basis for every kind of exaggeration and perversion.'
'Does Maulevrier know?' faltered Mary.
'Maulevrier knows all that is known by the general public, and no more.'
'And you have married the granddaughter of a disgraced man,' said Mary, with a piteous look. 'Did you know—when you married me?'
'As much as I know now, dear love. If you had been Jonathan Wild's granddaughter you would have been just as dear to me. I married you, dearest; I love you; I believe in you. All the grandfathers in Christendom would not shake my faith by one tittle.'