Next morning Mrs. Hartley appeared at breakfast, with signs of sleeplessness around her eyes, and tokens of anxiety on her face.
“I have decided on the course we must take,” she said, when they were alone; “but before I speak about it, I want to tell and ask you something.
“I know now from whom you received your information; do not be frightened, for the secret is safe with me, and it is well I do know, for otherwise we might, with the best intentions, have secured a fiasco. What I wish to ask is this, Is he aware she is acquainted with this affair?”
“Mrs. Hartley,” said Grace quietly, “I must refuse to answer any question in connection with the individual who brought this intelligence to me. I wish it never had been brought. I am the last person in the world on whom such a responsibility should have been thrown.”
“I agree with you to a certain extent. I think there are many persons in the world who would have been of more use in such a crisis than yourself. The worst of young heiresses, even if they have philanthropic impulses and amiable dispositions, is that they are apt to get slightly—”
“Selfish,” suggested one of the young heiresses referred to.
“No, I do not mean exactly that; in fact, I am not exactly certain that I could express what I do mean. One thing, however, I must say, making all allowance for the difficulty in which you have been placed,—I think, Miss Grace, you ought to have made some move in the matter ere this; you ought to have told me all about it before you had been twenty-four hours in the same house with me. There, I have spoken out my mind and feel better for it. Now are you going to be very angry with me?”
“No indeed,” Grace answered; “I like to be scolded, it seems as though some one loved me enough to be interested in me,” and she caught Mrs. Hartley’s hand and held it for a second. There were unshed tears in the eyes of both. Perhaps the same thought occurred to each at the same moment. They had wealth, and position, friends, acquaintances; they possessed those things deemed valuable by most people; and yet they were lonely creatures, the one in her youth, the other in her age.
“I shall write,” said Mrs. Hartley, after a pause, “to Lord Ardmorne, or rather, I shall go to see him—he is in London now; he is so courteous a nobleman, I dare say he would come to see me if I asked him.”
“That would be a far better arrangement,” remarked Grace. “Your servants here could attach no importance to his visit, but his servants there might.”