“I will try,” said Grace boldly. “You are not really changed in the least; you are the same true, dear friend you were in the old Kingslough days when Nettie made such a mess of her life; but everything about you is changed. The grandeur—don’t laugh at me—and the formality, and the stateliness of your surroundings threw me back at first, and then I fancy you thought I was changed, and so—”
“Yes; you need not try to finish; spite of your occasional little whiffs of temper, you have changed, or rather developed, into one of the sweetest and most lovable women I have ever known. And now you are getting accustomed to what you call my grandeur, and English ways do not seem so objectionable as they did at first, and we are going this evening to break the ice once and for always; and you have a story to tell, and I am in one of my best moods for listening.”
“My story is a very short one, but it will interest you, for it concerns the Rileys.”
“Which of them?”
“All; father, mother, sisters, brother,” answered Grace. “The night my father was taken ill I was told something which may affect them all most seriously. It was my intention to consult him in the matter, but after—after his death you may imagine I forgot for a time in my own grief the possible griefs of other people. Before I left Ireland, however, I received a note containing the words, ‘Have you forgotten what I told you?’ To-day a second note is forwarded to me repeating the same inquiry.”
“May I ask the name of the writer?”
“No; there is my difficulty. I am bound to silence as regards my informant. But for that, I should have sent for General Riley and told him all I had learned.”
“The Rileys and you have not been very intimate since you were sweet seventeen?” said Mrs. Hartley interrogatively.
“No,” was the reply. “We of course are friendly if we happen to meet, but Mrs. Riley’s disappointment at my refusing John was so great that she ceased visiting Bayview entirely. I felt rather hurt that she never called upon me after my loss. The General was ill; indeed his health has been bad for a long time past, but I thought and think she and the girls might have let bygones be bygones, and come and said, ‘We are sorry for your trouble.’”
“It certainly would have been more graceful,” remarked Mrs. Hartley; “but, then, one never associates the ideas of grace and Mrs. Riley together. But to come to your story.”