“Sir Maurice did not expect you, Miss Iris.”
“How, Truble! Sir Maurice knew I was coming!”
“But he did not think you would come, Miss Iris. But his lordship expected you. The gentlemen are in the library.”
“His lordship, Truble, does me too much honour in thinking I can keep my word.... Truble, my dear!”
I had been looking round me when that sudden cry shook me like the cry of a bird in pain. The fat old butler was weeping, there was not a doubt of it. There at the head of the broad steps, quite motionless, a broad black shape under his white hair. Iris had him by the shoulder, was shaking him, her hat like a toy against that black shape.
“Truble,” she said, so huskily, “that I should ever have made you cry! My dear, my dear!”
“Sir,” the old man appealed to me down below with a funnily out-flung hand. “I never was so ashamed of myself in my life! But it came on me all of a sudden hearing Miss Iris say, here at the doors of Sutton Marle, in a voice as hard as that ash she was always in love with, that about his lordship doing her too much honour about her keeping her word. I held Miss Iris in my arms, sir, when she wasn’t above a year old, and now—I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir. And yours, Miss Iris. I’m sure I don’t know what’s come over me to-night....”
One leather arm had the old man by the shoulder. Iris’s face seemed painted white.
“Truble,” she said, so huskily, “I am so sorry to have upset you. You have been faithful to me, Truble, for thirty years, and now, I suppose, you mustn’t love me any more. You don’t love me any more, Truble?”
“Miss Iris, Miss Iris! There’s no good comes from loving, I see that!”