“This is the first time she has come out of her room since—” began she of the black hair in explanation, but Mrs. Brady stopped her.
“Don’t!” she said in that faint irritable voice, which spoke volumes to Grace of the sufferings she had endured. “I cannot bear to talk,” she went on addressing her friend. “If you stay, if you really want to stay, you must never speak to me of it or him. Will you promise?”
“I never will unless you wish me to do so,” Grace answered readily, scarcely realizing how difficult she might find it to keep her word.
“Where will I put the portmantle?” inquired the car-driver, breaking across the conversation with an abruptness which one at least of the trio felt to be a relief.
It was almost dark inside the house—so dark that Grace, unable to see the contents of her purse, stepped out into the twilight to pay the man.
“Can I get a drop of water for my horse, Miss?” he asked as she counted the money into his hands, and turning she repeated the question to the servant who stood in the doorway.
“Not here,” answered the woman. “The men are gone, and the dogs are loose. There is a stream crosses the road less than a mile up it; the beast can drink his fill there.”
Never before—never in the whole of her life had Grace heard so inhospitable a sentence uttered. Involuntarily it caused her to double the amount of the man’s own gratuity, and to say to him in a low voice,—
“They are in great distress of mind here; perhaps you know.”
“Yes, Miss, I know,” was the reply; but Grace felt there was no sympathy in his tone, and she turned to re-enter the house with a conviction that even the circumstances of Mr. Brady’s death had failed to awaken popular sympathy in his behalf.