The Moat let! Judging by the light of Burgoyne's recollections, it would have seemed less surprising to him to hear that Windsor Castle had been turned into a Joint Stock Company Hotel. It is probably, then, some money trouble that has turned Mrs. Le Marchant's hair white—snow white, as he now sees it to be. But no; he rejects the explanation as insufficient. She is not the woman to have taken a diminished income so much to heart.
Good manners forbid him to ask, "Why is the Moat let?" so all that he says is, "Nine and a half years ago? Why, that must have been very soon after I left Devonshire."
He addresses his remark involuntarily rather to the wife than the husband, but she does not answer it. Her eyes are fixed upon the bubbles sailing so fast upon the swollen river, which is distinguishable only by its current from the sameness of the surrounding water. A lark—there is always a lark in Mesopotamia—a tiny, strong-throated singer, that never seems to have to stop to take breath, fills up the silence, shouting somewhere out of sight among the black clouds, in and out of which the uncertain sun is plunging. Whether of a moneyed nature or not, there is evidently something very unpleasant connected with their leaving their native county and their immemorial home, so he had better get away from the subject as fast as possible.
"Anyhow," he says, with a rather nervous smile, "I hope that the world has been treating you kindly—that things have gone well with you since those dear old days when you were so good to me."
There is an instant's pause—perhaps he would not have noticed it had not his suspicions been already roused—before the husband, again taking upon him the task of replying, answers, with a sort of laboured carelessness:
"Oh, yes, thanks; we do not complain. It has not been a very rosy time for landlords lately, as you are aware."
"And you?" cries the wife, striking in with a species of hurry in her voice—a hurry due, as his instinct tells him, to the fact of her fear of his entering into more detailed inquiries. "And you? We must not forget you. Have you been well, flourishing, all this long time? Do you still live with your——"
She stops abruptly. It is apparent that she has entirely forgotten what was the species of relation with whom he lived. There is a little tinge of bitterness in his heart, though not in his tone, as he supplies the missing word "aunt." After all, he had forgotten her name; why should not she forget his aunt?
"With my aunt? Well, I never exactly lived with her; I made, and make my headquarters there when I am in England, which is not very often. I have been a rolling stone; I have rolled pretty well round the world since we parted."
They do not care in the least where he has rolled, nor how much nor how little moss he has collected in the process. They are only thinking how they can best get rid of him. But the past is strong upon him; he cannot let them slide out of his life again for another ten—twenty years perhaps, without finding out from them something about his five merry playmates. His inquiry must needs be a vague one. Who dares ask specifically after this or that man, woman, or even child, when ten years have rolled their tides between?