Marcella started.
"I didn't know," she said quickly.
Aldous Raeburn's distress grew.
"I really oughtn't to speak of these things," he said, "for I don't know them accurately. But I want to answer what you said—I do indeed. It was that, I think, chiefly. Everybody here respected and loved your grandfather—my grandfather did—and there was great feeling for him—"
"I see! I see!" said Marcella, her chest heaving; "and against papa."
She walked on quickly, hardly seeing where she was going, her eyes dim with tears. There was a wretched pause. Then Aldous Raeburn broke out—
"But after all it is very long ago. And there may have been some harsh judgment. My grandfather may have been misinformed as to some of the facts. And I—"
He hesitated, struck with the awkwardness of what he was going to say.
But Marcella understood him.
"And you will try and make him alter his mind?" she said, not ungratefully, but still with a touch of sarcasm in her tone. "No, Mr. Raeburn, I don't think that will succeed."
They walked on in silence for a little while. At last he said, turning upon her a face in which she could not but see the true feeling of a just and kindly man—