"No; and he has left nothing to Emmie," she returned, thankful that in this she could speak the whole truth. "Nearly all of it has gone to a stranger, a mere connection. Caleb has an annuity; and I—he has not forgotten me," shielding her face still more in the darkness. "Emmie and I will have enough to live on now. I shall not need to give French lessons, or to add in any way to my salary," blurting out the lesson she had prepared herself to say.
"Will you have enough without the school?" persisted Garth curiously. His keen ear had detected a certain trembling in Queenie's voice. Her agitation had not escaped him, and he was trying in his straightforward way to find out why she was not like herself to-night. "Do you mean that your salary is no longer of importance to you?"
"It is not all that we shall have to live on, that is what I meant to say," she returned hurriedly. "I shall not have to stint, or be afraid of how we shall make ends meet; there will be enough. Emmie will have little comforts; that is all I care for."
"I am very glad," returned Garth, gravely; but he questioned her no more. Possibly he expected her further confidence, and was a little disappointed when she withheld it. Neither on that evening nor on any further occasion did he revert to the subject; and Queenie, who began to feel her position an embarrassing one, was glad that the whole matter should be consigned to oblivion.
Cathy's curiosity was much more easily satisfied.
"There, my dream has come true," she said, embracing her ecstatically when they had retired to their own rooms. "Why did you not write and tell me about it? Will you have much, Queen—a whole hundred a-year?"
"Yes; I shall have a hundred a-year," returned Queenie, trying not to laugh. When she was away from those keen grey eyes she felt something like a renewal of courage. Her spirits returned; the whole thing appeared to her in the light of a good joke. "When it comes out, and he asks me the reason of this mystery, I know what I shall tell him," she thought, when Cathy had withdrawn, well pleased, and she was left alone for the night. "I shall tell him that I wanted to remain poor a little longer, and to be liked for myself; that I feared losing the school and the cottage; that it was an innocent whim that could do no one harm, and that would give me a great deal of pleasure," and when she had settled this point comfortably with herself she composed herself to sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
WEAVING IN THE SUNSET.
"Where waitest thou,
Lady I am to love? Thou comest not;
Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot;
I look'd for thee ere now!