"I should certainly think twice before I gave him Ethel. Such haste! I don't see" (and here a little bit of the true animus peeped out) "why Ethel should have the pleasure of staying on at Greylands' Rest for good, while I and Flora are to be forced to leave it!"
No answer.
"All the pleasant places of the dear child!--that have been hers from childhood--that she has grown up attached to! Her very swing in the garden!--the doll's house in the nursery! Everything."
"She can take her swing and her doll's house with her."
"And for that Ethel to stay, and come in for all the benefit! If she must marry George North I should at least make her wait a twelvemonth."
"They shall be married as soon as they please," said Mr. Castlemaine. "He will make her a good husband; I am sure of it: and his means are large. Her home with him will be happier than you have allowed it to be with us: I did not forget that in my decision."
The lips of Mrs. Castlemaine were being bitten to nothing. Whatever she said seemed to get twisted and turned against her. But she fully intended at some more auspicious moment, when her husband should be in a less uncompromising mood, to have another trial at retaining Greylands' Rest. If she had but known the real truth!--that it was George Castlemaine's by inheritance, and had been his since that past February night!
Meanwhile George himself was with Madame Guise, making known to her the elucidation of many things and of the manner of Anthony's death. Poor Charlotte Guise, demonstrative as are most French women sobbed and exclaimed as she listened, and found that what she had feared was indeed a certainty. It was the shot of that fatal February night that had killed her husband: the scream heard had been his death-scream. She was in truth a widow and her child fatherless.
But, when the first shock lifted itself--and it was perhaps less keenly felt in consequence of what may be called these many long months of preparation for it--her thoughts turned to Mr. Castlemaine. The certainty that he was innocent--for she implicitly believed her brother-in-law's version of the past--brought to her unspeakable relief. Prejudice apart, she had always liked Mr. Castlemaine: and she now felt ashamed for having doubted him. "If I had but taken the courage to declare myself to him at first, and what my mission was in England, I might have been spared all this dreadful suspicion and torment!" she cried, her tears dropping softly. "And it has been a torment, I assure you, George, to live in the same house with Mr. Castlemaine, believing him guilty. And oh! to think that I should have opened that bureau! Will he ever forgive me?"
"You must not tell him of that," said George gravely. "I speak in your interest alone, Charlotte. It would answer no good end to declare it; and, as it happened, no harm was done."