The next day Guy came from Schodick. Magdalen was the first to meet him, and her eyes asked the question her lips would never have uttered.
“No, Miss Grey” Guy said, laughingly, adopting the name which sounded so oddly to her. “He did not send any written reply to your note. There is some confounded bother on his mind, I could not divine what; something which sealed his lips, though his face and eyes and manner had ‘Magdalen, Magdalen,’ written all over and through them. Don’t look so sorry, cousin,” he continued, winding his arm around her waist, “and don’t try to look so innocent, either. I guessed the whole thing when you handed me the note, and I know it for certain now. You love Roger Irving, he loves you. There is nothing truer than that, but there is something between you,—what, I don’t know,—but I’ll find it out. I’ll clear it up. He is a splendid fellow, and almost idolized, I judge, by the people of Schodick. Not much like his nephew Frank,——”
Here Guy stopped suddenly, for Mr. Grey was coming in with Alice, who asked the result of his visit to Mr. Irving.
“I have learned but little that we did not know before,” Guy said. “Mr. Irving’s description of the woman who left the child tallies exactly with what I should suppose Mrs. Grey might have been at that time. A woman of twenty or thereabouts, medium size, dressed in mourning, carrying a satchel, with black hair and eyes,—the woman I mean, not the satchel,—restless, peculiar eyes they were, and he said he had frequently noticed the same peculiarity about Magdalen’s, which means, I take it, that they flash and glow and raise the mischief with a fellow.”
He gave a comical look at Magdalen, and did not observe the frown on Mr. Grey’s face, but Magdalen did, and felt a throb of pain as she saw a new obstacle laid across the path to Roger. There were many things she wanted to ask Guy about that home in Schodick which she could not ask with her father and Alice present, and she felt as if she must cry outright with pain and disappointment. Guy, however, was not one to lose much of what was passing around him, and after telling Mr. Grey the particulars of his interview with Roger, he sauntered towards the library, knowing that Magdalen would follow him. And she did, and blushed scarlet at the whistle he gave as he said, “I knew you would come. Now what shall I tell you? What do you want to know most?”
He had her secret. There was no use in trying to conceal it, and Magdalen did not try, but said, “Don’t laugh at me, Guy. Think what Roger has been to me all these years, and tell me how he looks, and about the house, and does he work very hard? Oh, Guy, he was made poor by me, you know, and I have all my wages saved up ready to send him, but now I can’t earn any more, and what I’ve got is so little.”
Her tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she brushed them away and looked half indignantly at Guy, who laughed merrily as he said: “The absurdity of your sending money to Roger. He does not need it; take my word for that. The house is old, old as the hills, I reckon, judging from its architecture, but very comfortable and neat as a lady’s slipper. I saw no marks of poverty. The neighbors did not send in anything while I was there, and we had a grand dinner. I dined with him, you see, on solid silver, too, with wine and Malaga grapes; though come to think of it, the grapes were a present from Frank, who sent a box from New York. That Frank is living fast and doing the magnificent on a great scale, I reckon, but I’d rather be Roger than he.”
“Didn’t Roger say anything to my note?” Magdalen asked, more interested in that than in Frank and Malaga grapes.
“No, he didn’t, except, ‘Tell Magdalen I will answer this by and by,’” Guy said; “but he seemed glad for you in one sense, and then again he didn’t. I should say, if I am any judge of mankind, that he was afraid that the gulf between the rich Miss Grey and the poor Mr. Irving was wider than he could span, but I may be mistaken; at all events it is sure to come right in time. As I said before, he is a splendid chap, and you have my consent.”
Guy was very hopeful, very comforting, and Magdalen felt better after this talk with him, and looked anxiously for the letter which Roger was to send, and which came at last. A kind, brotherly letter, in which he said how glad he was for her that she had found her friends, and disclaimed all idea of her having ever brought trouble to him.