Mrs. Guthrie had the grace to feel a little ashamed.
“I hope you’ll come again soon, my dear.” She was surprised to feel how smooth and how young was the texture of Mrs. Otway’s soft, generously-lipped mouth and rounded cheek.
There rose a feeling of real regret in her cynical old heart. “She likes him better than she knows, and far better than I thought she did!” she said to herself, as she watched the still light, still singularly graceful-looking figure hurrying away towards the house.
As for Mrs. Otway, she felt oppressed, and yes, a little pained, by the old lady’s confidence. That what she had just been told might not be true did not occur to her. What more natural than that Major Guthrie should like a nice girl—one, too, who was, it seemed, half Scotch? The Trepells were probably in London even now—she had seen it mentioned in a paper that every one was still staying on in town. If so, Major Guthrie was doubtless constantly in their company; and the letter she had so—well, not exactly longed for, but certainly expected, might even now be lying on the table in the hall of the Trellis House, informing her of his engagement!
She remembered now what she had heard of the Trepells. It concerned the great, the almost limitless, wealth brought in by their wonderful polish. She found it difficult to think of Major Guthrie as a very rich man. Of course, he would always remain, what he was now, a quiet, unassuming gentleman; but all the same, she, Mary Otway, did feel that somehow this piece of news made it impossible for her to accept the loan he had so kindly and so delicately forced on her.
Mrs. Otway had a lively, a too lively, imagination, and it seemed to her as if it was Miss Trepell’s money which lay in the envelope now locked away in her writing-table drawer. Indeed, had she known exactly where Major Guthrie was just now, she would have returned it to him. But supposing he had already started for France, and the registered letter came back and was opened by his mother—how dreadful that would be!
When she reached home, and walked through into her cool, quiet house, Mrs. Otway was quite surprised to find that there was no letter from Major Guthrie lying for her on the hall table.
CHAPTER XV
Rose Otway ran up to her room and locked the door. She had fled there to read her first love-letter.
“My Darling Rose,—This is only to tell you that I love you. I have been writing letters to you in my heart ever since I went away. But this is the first moment I have been able to put one down on paper. Father and mother never leave me—that sounds absurd, but it’s true. If father isn’t there, then mother is. Mother comes into my room after I am in bed, and tucks me up, just as she used to do when I was a little boy.