It was scarcely fair of me, perhaps, to put these questions to my friend, for, after all, her natural curiosity about her strange neighbours was only dormant. I saw that she hesitated to reply, so I hastened to add assurances of my discretion.
“You need not be afraid of my ever gossipping about the Grim House,” I said. “I have not even mentioned it at home. But one can’t help wondering about it. Do tell me all you know yourself.”
“I think I have told you all there is to tell,” said Isabel. “Nobody knows if ‘Grey’ is their real name or not; and as for their getting letters, I believe they never do—at any rate, not that we have ever heard of. They are good people, of that I am sure. The sisters’ faces are so gentle, though dreadfully sad. The eldest brother is stern-looking, but the younger one looks kind, though very grave. And they are very charitable; the people in the village say they are sure of help from the Grim House whenever they are in trouble. The Greys make their servants tell them of any illness or special poverty; and they are sensible too, the vicar says, in what they do.”
“And have none of their servants ever told over anything?”
“There seems nothing to tell,” said Isabel. “It is just a very quiet regular house. Things seem to go on from year’s end to year’s end just the same.”
“It is too extraordinary,” I exclaimed, “and dreadfully sad.”
“And it will grow sadder and sadder as time passes,” Isabel replied. “They can’t all live for ever, and when it comes to the last one left there alone! It makes one shiver to think of it.”
“But perhaps,” I said, “the secret doesn’t really concern them all? Perhaps if the eldest brother died the others would be free? They may in some way be sacrificed for him?”
But Isabel shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “The only strong feeling I have about it is that they are all suffering together through some one else’s fault. They are so devoted to each other—there is never a breath of any discussion or quarrelling, and that would have been heard of through the servants.”