“Still we must not let them be utterly beggared without lifting a finger to save them. Besides, your friend must wish them to know their danger, or such a communication would never have been made; and if harm does come of Mr. Brady hearing you are acquainted with his secrets, it seems to me that you are in no way responsible for it.”
“Harm must not come, Mrs. Hartley,” said Grace earnestly. “If you can think of any way in which we can let the General know without his connecting either of us with the intelligence—well; but if not, the very best thing that could be done would be for you to write to John and tell him that he must come home.”
“And find Mr. Brady ‘in possession’ of the property!” finished Mrs. Hartley. “I suspect there is no time to be lost about the matter, and that, clever as we both are, we shall have to get the assistance of some man in it. Poor John! it would indeed be hard to lose both wife and lands.”
“I should have thought he might have found the former without much difficulty ere this,” said Grace.
“Then, my dear, you judged Mr. John Riley, as usual, unfairly,” retorted Mrs. Hartley.
Her visitor laughed. “I do so like to hear you defend him. You are thoroughly in earnest on that subject.”
“Earnestness is a good quality,” said the widow. “It is one in which some of your suitors have been rather deficient.”
“None of them, so far as their desire to get my money was concerned, I assure you,” Miss Moffat answered, which might be considered as rather a neat little tit in return for Mrs. Hartley’s tat.
For a long time after they had separated for the night the latter lady lay awake, thinking over Grace’s story, and wondering who could have told her. She recalled all the people she had known in Kingslough, she puzzled her head to imagine who it might be so utterly in Mr. Brady’s power as to dread the weight of his vengeance. She tried to remember if Grace had let fall any word likely to give her a clue, but in vain.
“It must be that Hanlon or else Scott—I dare say it was Scott. But, then, Mr. Brady and he could not be bitterer enemies than they are; besides, the address on that letter was written by a person of education. I feel no doubt it was Mr. Hanlon,” and then all at once the truth flashed upon her, and she sat up in bed, saying almost out aloud, “It was Nettie, the man’s own wife.” Even in the darkness Kingslough seemed to rise before her eyes. Kingslough at high noon, with the sun dancing on the sea and a group of pitying friends gathered round a feeble old woman bewailing herself for Nettie, golden-haired Nettie, who had gone out that morning all unsuspecting to meet her fate.