She had not said one word, or lifted her eyes to Everard's face. As she passed him, her dress almost brushing against him, he made no attempt to detain her. Doreen followed her; and then Moritz joined the agitated little group.
"My cousin is a good woman," he said, with solemnity, as though he had just discovered the fact. "She has noble purposes, and has the courage to follow them out. I admire especially the finesse and cleverness with which she has elaborated and carried out her beneficent scheme. It might almost be compared, in its grandeur of conception, and its marvellous diplomacy, with another drama of human life, in which I have played a part." And here Moritz looked at his young fiancée, and his humour changed. "Come and take a turn with me, Mollie darling," he whispered in the girl's ear; and then Waveney and her father were left alone.
No one ever knew what passed between Althea and Noel in the Porch House; but, for the rest of the evening, Noel was unusually grave and thoughtful. But as Althea was about to return to the verandah, where the lad had already betaken himself, she came upon Everard. He was standing alone in the porch, and was evidently waiting for her.
It was now late, and the moon had risen, and Everard's face was illuminated by the white light. At the sight of him, Althea's assumed calmness vanished; but she tried to speak in the old friendly way.
"Were you looking for me, Mr. Ward?" she asked, hurriedly. "Are they all in the verandah still?"
"Yes," he returned, curtly; "but I have come to ask you a question. Althea, why have you done this; why have you heaped these coals of fire upon my head?"
Poor Althea! The avalanche had fallen, and she had nothing more to fear; never again, as she told herself, would she live through such a moment of humiliation and shame. The purity of her motives and the absence of all self-seeking and consciousness, would make it easy to defend herself.
"Mr. Ward," she said, in her sweet, pathetic voice, "we are old friends, and to me the claims and responsibilities of friendship are very real and sacred. When your trouble came, when you lost your dear wife, I heard from a mutual friend that you were struggling in deep waters, and that, in spite of hard work, you found it difficult to make ends meet."
"That is true," returned Everard. "But——"
"Please let me tell you everything," she pleaded. "This mutual friend often spoke to me of your twin girls, but one day he mentioned Noel. 'He is a bright little lad,' he said, 'and very sharp and intelligent; but Ward frets sadly about his education. He has no means of sending him to a good school, and he is very down about it, poor fellow!' Those were his very words. I never forgot them. I know, from your own lips, what a bright happy boyhood yours had been. You had told me so many stories of your Eton days, and it seemed to me so grievous that your son should be robbed of his rightful advantages."