“Geoff,” said Lady Stanton, with a trembling voice, “the other is living still, and he has paid dearly for it all this time. We must not be hard upon him. I do not want to excuse him—it would be strange if I should be the one to excuse him; but only—— ”
“I am very sorry for him, Cousin Mary. I am glad you feel as I do. Walter may have been in the wrong for anything I know. I do not think it was murder.”
“That I am sure it was not! John Musgrave was not the man to do a murder—oh, no, no; Geoff! he was not that kind of man!”
Geoff looked up surprised at her eager tone and the trembling in her voice.
“You knew him—well?” he said, with that indifferent composure with which people comment upon the past, not knowing what depths those are over which they skim so lightly. Could he have seen into the agitation in Lady Stanton’s heart! But he would not have understood nor realized the commotion that was there.
“I always—took an interest in him,” she said, faltering; and then she felt it her duty to do her best for him as an old friend. “I had known him all my life, Geoff, as well as I knew Walter. He was hasty and high-spirited, but so kind—he would have gone out of his way to help any one. Before he saw that young woman everybody was fond of John.”
“Did you know her too?”
“No, no; I did not know her. God forbid! She was the destruction of every one who cared for her,” said Lady Stanton with a little outburst. Then she made an effort to subdue herself. “Perhaps I am not just to her,” she said with a faint smile. “She was preferred to me, you know, Geoff; and they say a woman cannot forget that—perhaps it is true.”
“How could he? was he mad?” Geoff said. Geoff was himself tenderly, filially in love with his cousin Mary. He thought there was nobody in the world so beautiful and so kind. And even now she was not understood as she ought to be. Sir Henry thought her a good enough wife, a faithful creature, perfectly trustworthy, and so forth. It was in this light that all regarded her. Something better than an upper servant, a little dearer than a governess; something to be made use of, to do everything for everybody. She who, Geoff thought in his enthusiasm, was more lovely and sweet than the youngest of them, and ought to be held pre-eminent and sacred by everybody round her. This was not the lot that had fallen to her in life.
“So I am not the best judge, you see,” said Lady Stanton with a little sigh. “In those days one felt more strongly perhaps. It all seems so vivid and clear,” she added half apologetically, though without entirely realizing how much light these half-confessions threw on her present state of less lively feeling, “that is the effect of being young—— ”