Cosmo made a full stop before he said Madame Roche, and pronounced that name at last so evidently as a substitute for some other name, that Huntley’s curiosity was roused; which curiosity, however, he thought it best to satisfy diplomatically, and by a round-about course.
“I must see her to-morrow,” he said; “but what of our old friend, Melmar, who loved us all so well? I should not like to rejoice in any man’s downfall, but he deserved it, surely. What has become of them all?”
“He is a poor writer again,” said Cosmo, shortly, “and Joanna—it was Joanna who brought Desirée here.”
“Who is Desirée?” asked Huntley.
“I ought to say Miss Roche,” said Cosmo, blushing to his hair. “Joanna Huntley and she were great friends at school, and after the change she was very anxious that Joanna should stay. She is the youngest, and an awkward, strange girl—but, why I can not tell, she clings to her father, and is a governess or school-mistress now, I believe. Yes, things change strangely. They were together when I saw them first.”
“They—them! you are rather mysterious, Cosmo. What is the story?” asked his brother.
“Oh, nothing very remarkable; only Des—Miss Roche, you know, came to Melmar first of all as governess to Joanna, and it was while she was there that I found Madame Roche at St. Ouen. When I returned, my mother,” said Cosmo, with a softening in his voice, “brought Desirée to Norlaw, as you must have heard; and it was from our house that she went home.”
“And, except this unfortunate sick one, she is the only child?” said Huntley. “I understand it now.”
Cosmo gave him a hurried jealous glance, as if to ask what it was he understood, but after that relapsed into uncomfortable silence. They went on for some time so, Cosmo with anger and impatience supposing his elder brother’s mind to be occupied with what he had just told him; and it was with amazement, relief, but almost contempt for Huntley’s extraordinary want of interest in matters so deeply interesting to himself, that Cosmo heard and answered the next question addressed to him.
“And Dr. Logan is dead,” said Huntley, with a quiet sorrow in his voice, which trembled too with another emotion. “I wonder where Katie and her bairns are now?”