Then Edmond saw that his best policy would be to volunteer as much information as it suited him that his sister should be in possession of, knowing by experience that to baffle temporarily her curiosity was surely to increase it in the end. Hydra-like, it but sprouted afresh in a hundred new directions, if extinguished in one; and that she should even suspect the existence of anything he wished to conceal, with regard to Cicely, was disagreeable and undesirable in the extreme. So he smiled at her petulant speech, and answered good-humouredly. “I know what you always mean by something mysterious, Bessie. You are constantly fancying you have got on the scent of a love-story. I have no love-story to confide to you about Miss Methvyn—at least—” he stopped and hesitated.
“At least what?” exclaimed Mrs. Crichton.
“I was thinking,” he said, “of what you said about my not being a doctor any longer. That does not make me free to gossip about what I became acquainted with when I was one, does it?”
“No, I suppose not,” said Bessie. “But I shall never tell over anything about Miss Methvyn. I want to know about her, I have taken a fancy to her. Do go on after ‘at least.’ ”
“I was merely going to say that the only love-story I can tell you about her, is painful and must not be alluded to. But under the circumstances, perhaps, it is best you should know it. When I last saw Miss Methvyn, she was on the point of marriage with her cousin, a Mr. Fawcett—the marriage was broken off, and within a very short time he married another girl—her cousin, but not his, a French girl, the daughter of these people here, the pasteur and his wife.”
“What a shame!” ejaculated Bessie. “I thought they seemed such nice people.”
“So they are, I have no doubt. If not, she—Miss Methvyn—would not be staying with them.”
“But the girl—their daughter—must have been very designing.” Mr. Guildford did not answer. “How dreadful for Miss Methvyn!” continued Bessie. “I wonder it did not break her heart.”
“How do you know it didn’t?” asked her brother quickly.
“She doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs. Crichton. “She looks grave and rather sad, but she smiles brightly; there is nothing bitter or sour about her.”