The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Two hundred pounds. It was a scene taken in the Alpes-Maritimes."

"You have been much abroad, Mr. North?"

"Oh, very much. I have latterly been staying for more than a year in Italy."

"How you must have enjoyed it?"

"For the time of sojourn I did. But it will always lay on my mind in a heavy weight of repentance."

"But why?" exclaimed Mrs. Castlemaine.

"Because----" and there he made a pause. "In my unpardonable thoughtlessness, madam, I, roving about from spot to spot, omitted sometimes to give any family any address where news from them might find me."

"And you had cause to repent not doing it?"

"Bitter cause," he answered, a wrung expression resting for an instant on his face. "My father died during that time; and--there were other matters wanting me. My life, so far as that past portion of it goes, will be one of unavailing repentance."

It almost seemed--at least the fancy struck Ethel--that Mr. North gave this little bit of unusual confidence--unusual in a stranger--for the benefit of Madame Guise. Certain it was, that he looked at her two or three times as he spoke; and on her face there shone a strangely sad and regretful light.