“I have told you that I know nothing of him, Aunt,” said Mary. “I saw him once at the most painful moment of my life, and spoke half-a-dozen words to him in my own house after that—but it is what I have heard the gentlemen say. I do not like him. I think it was unmannerly and indelicate to come to my house at such a time——”
“My darling!” said Aunt Agatha, soothing her tenderly. Miss Seton was thinking of the major’s death, not of any pain that might have gone before; and Mary by this time in the throng of recollections that came upon her had forgotten that everybody did not know.
“But that is not the reason,” Mrs. Ochterlony said, composing herself: “the reason is that he could not, unless he is greatly changed, make Winnie otherwise than unhappy. I know the reputation he had. The Heskeths would not let him come to their house after Annie came out; and I have even heard Hugh——”
“My dear love, you are agitating yourself,” cried Aunt Agatha. “Oh, Mary, if you only knew how anxious I am to do anything to recall——”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, with a faint smile: “it is not so far off that I should require anything to recall all that has happened to me—but for Winnie’s sake——”
And it was just at that moment that the light suddenly appeared in Sir Edward’s window, and brought Winnie in, white and passionate, with a thunder-cloud full of tears and lightnings and miserable headache and self-reproach, lowering over her brilliant eyes.
“It is very good of Mary, I am sure, to think of something for my sake,” said Winnie. “What is it, Aunt Agatha? Everything is always so unpleasant that is for one’s good. I should like to know what it was.”
And then there was a dead silence in the pretty room. Mary bent her head over her work, silenced by the question, and Aunt Agatha, in a flutter of uncertainty and tribulation, turned from one to the other, not knowing which side to take nor what to say.
“Mary has come among us a stranger,” said Winnie, “and I suppose it is natural that she should think she knows our business better than we do. I suppose that is always how it seems to a stranger; but at the same time it is a mistake, Aunt Agatha, and I wish you would let Mary know that we are disposed to manage for ourselves. If we come to any harm it is we who will have to suffer, and not Mary,” the impetuous girl cried, as she drew that unhappy embroidery frame out of its corner.
And then another pause, severe and startling, fell upon the little party. Aunt Agatha fluttered in her chair, looking from one to another, and Winnie dragged a violent needle through her canvas, and a great night moth came in and circled about them, and dashed itself madly against the globe of light on the table. As for Mary, she sat working at Hugh’s little blouse, and for a long time did not speak.