She was a tall, thin, dark-eyed woman, with grey hair, high cheek-bones, and a severe expression; but her smile was kind, her eyes steady and honest. She spoke very little, and her manner was guarded. Glynn had been favorably impressed on the only occasion when he had met her—their visit to the stock-broker's, and the transfer of Elsie's money to Glynn's care.
"I find Miss Lambert by no means so well as I should like to see her," he said at length.
"No, sir; and I am surprised she looks so well. Her life has been a very trying one for many months."
"It has. I trust its trials will soon be over."
"There seems little prospect of that unless Mr. Lambert will speak."
"As an old friend, Mrs. Kellett, you ought to beg him to explain his position, or, if the effort be too painful for him, to let you do it for him."
"But I do not know the whole story!" said Mrs. Kellett. "It is fourteen years since he gave that dear child into my care, and though I always suspected he had a history, and a strange one, I never knew it. He has always been a loving father, a just and generous paymaster. I know no more."
"It is the strangest case I have heard of," Glynn was beginning, when Elsie returned.
"He is sleeping quite peacefully," she said, "and he needs rest terribly."
"Then I must not stay longer," said Mrs. Kellett, "and I dare not come soon again. When I write it will be as usual under cover to your landlady."