"Is the funeral quite over?" she asked presently, without lifting her heavy eyelids.
"Yes, dear. It was a noble funeral. Everybody was there—rich and poor. Everybody loved him."
"The poor most of all," she said. "I know how good he was to them."
Somebody knocked at the door and asked something of Miss McCroke, which obliged the governess to leave her pupil. Roderick was glad at her departure, That substantial figure in its new black dress had been a hinderance to freedom of conversation.
Miss McCroke's absence did not loosen Violet's tongue. She sat looking at the ground, and was dumb. That silent grief was very awful to Roderick.
"Violet, why don't you talk to me about your sorrow?" he said. "Surely you can trust me—your friend—your brother!"
That last word stung her into speech. The hazel eyes shot a swift angry glance at him.
"You have no right to call yourself that," she said, "you have not treated me like a sister."
"How not, dear?"
"You should have told me about your engagement—that you were going to marry Lady Mabel Ashbourne."