'And the niece, the young lady who is to be my special charge?' Wantley was still smiling. 'She's sure to know something about him—that is, if you take in a daily paper at the Settlement.'
'Cecily?' Mrs. Robinson's voice softened. 'Dear little Cecily won't trouble her head about him at all.' She turned away quickly as Lady Wantley's gentle, insistent voice floated across the room to where the two cousins were standing.
'George Downing? I remember your father bringing a youth called by that name to our house, many years ago, when you were a child, my love.' She hesitated, as if seeking to remember something which only half lingered in her memory.
Her daughter waited in painful silence. 'Would the ghost of that old story of disgrace and pain never be laid?' she asked herself rebelliously.
But Lady Wantley was not the woman to recall a scandal, even had she been wont to recall such things, of one who was now under her daughter's roof. Her next words were, however, if a surprise, even less welcome to one of her listeners than would have been those she expected to hear.
'There was an American Mrs. Downing, a lady who came with an introduction to see your father. She wished to consult him about a home for emigrant children, and I heard—now what did I hear?' Again Lady Wantley paused.
Mrs. Robinson straightened her well-poised head.
'You probably heard, mamma, what is, I believe, true: that Lady Downing, as she is of course now, is not on good terms with her husband. They parted almost immediately after their marriage, and I believe that they have not met for years.'
Wantley looked at his cousin with some surprise; she spoke impetuously, a note of deep feeling in her voice, and as if challenging contradiction. Then, suddenly, she held up her hand with a quick warning gesture.
Her ears had caught the sound of footsteps for whose measured tread she had learnt to listen, and a moment later the door opened, and the man of whom they had been speaking, advancing into the great room, stood before them.