“Yes, he lives here.”
“And has been ill?”
“And has been ill,” she repeated after him.
The young man smiled, and paused again. He seemed to be amused by these repetitions. He had a very pleasant face, not intellectual, not remarkable, but full of life and good-humour. He said: “Perhaps I ought not to trouble you; but if you know him, and his child——”
“I know him very well, and his child,—who is a child no longer, but almost grown up. He is slowly recovering out of a very long dangerous illness.”
“That is what we heard. I came, not for myself, but for a lady who takes a great interest. I think that she is a relation of—of Mr. Mannering’s late wife.”
“Is that woman dead, then?” Miss Bethune said. “I too take a great interest in the family. I shall be glad to tell you anything I know: but come with me into the Square, where we can talk at our ease.” She led him to a favourite seat under the shadow of a tree. Though it was in Bloomsbury, and the sounds of town were in the air, that quiet green place might have been far in the country, in the midst of pastoral acres. The Squares of Bloomsbury are too respectable to produce many children. There were scarcely even any perambulators to vulgarise this retreat. She turned to him as she sat down, and said again: “So that woman is dead?”
The young stranger looked surprised. “You mean Mrs. Mannering?” he said. “I suppose so, though I know nothing of her. May I say who I am first? My name is Gordon. I have just come from South America with Mrs. Bristow, the wife of my guardian, who died there a year ago. And it is she who has sent me to inquire.”
“Gordon?” said Miss Bethune. She had closed her eyes, and her head was going round; but she signed to him with her hand to sit down, and made a great effort to recover herself. “You will be of one of the Scotch families?” she said.
“I don’t know. I have never been in this country till now.”