"He will be months away. I will be all these months here. Before he can be back she shall be mine. I know it, I feel it. I am not now very nice in the means I employ. She shall be mine before he returns by—some means or other."
CHAPTER V.
THE INDEFINITE PRESENT.
The morning after the funeral Mrs. Grant and Maud walked up and down one of the long, silent corridors for an hour. The evening before, when the widow and the young girl sat together in the firelight, Maud had told the other the main features of the facts in the interview between herself and Sir William. Beyond expressing a guarded and general approval of the baronet, Mrs. Grant said little. She had been too tired, and Maud too exhausted from fretting and anxiety, to allow of close inquiry or elaborate statement. Now they were less fatigued, the worst day of the bereavement had passed, and they were quietly discussing matters.
"You know, Maud, my dear, no matter how kind Sir William may be to you, it will not do for you to forget Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant, very gravely. "You must not think of defying him or going to law with him, or anything of that sort."
"Indeed, Mrs. Grant, I am thinking of nothing of the kind," replied the girl, looking with troubled eyes and anxious face at her only female friend.
"Because you know," continued the woman, without heeding the interruption or the appealing face—"you know very well the Greys have served the family faithfully for many years; and now the present Mr. Grey has sworn to serve you, and to take care of you, and to be good and kind to you; and I am sure he will; for though he is not such a gentleman by birth as your father or Sir William, still he's a most respectable man."
The widow had the feminine trick of taking the bit in her teeth and going straight on, no matter who pulled right or who pulled left.
"You may rely on my doing nothing of the kind. How can you think I would!" cried the girl fervently.