“Come in, Margaret,” said her sister, “this concerns you.”
The old nun came across to Hubert with her anxious sweet face; and put her old hand tenderly on his black satin sleeve as he sat and wrenched at a nut between his fingers.
“Hubert, dear boy,” she said, “what is all this? Will you tell me?”
Hubert rose, a little ashamed of himself, and went to the door and closed it; and then drew out a chair for his aunt, and put a wine-glass for her.
“Sit down, aunt,” he said, and pushed the decanter towards her.
“I have just left Isabel,” she said, “she is very unhappy about something. You saw her this evening, dear lad?”
“Yes,” said Hubert, heavily, looking down at the table and taking up another nut, “and it is of that that I have been speaking. Who has made her unhappy?”
“I had hoped you would tell us that,” said Mistress Margaret; “I came up to ask you.”
“My son has done us—me—the honour——” began Lady Maxwell; but Hubert broke in:
“I left Isabel here last Christmas happy and a Protestant. I have come back here now to find her unhappy and half a Catholic, if not more—and——”