"Let well alone," said Mr. Dundas; but Alick answered, "Not till it is well; and God will help me."
Whereupon the interview ended, and Alick left the house, feeling something as one of the knights of old might have felt when he had vowed himself to the quest of the Holy Grail.
When Mr. Dundas came home, naturally the families called, as in duty bound and by inclination led. Excitement concerning Ford House was at its height, for there were two things to keep it alive—the one to see how the bride and bridegroom looked, the other to try and pick up something definite about Leam. And among the rest came Mr. Gryce, with his floating white locks falling about his bland cherubic face, his mild blue eyes with their trick of turning red on small provocation, and his lisping manner of speech, ingenuous, interrogatory, and knowing nothing when interrogated in his turn—somehow gleaning full ears wherever he passed, and dropping not even a solitary stalk of straw in return. He expressed his sorrow that he had not seen lately his young friend, Miss Dundas.
"In my secluded life," he said, his eyelids reddening, "she is like a beautiful bird that flashes through the dull sky for a moment, but leaves the atmosphere brighter than before." He glanced round the room as if looking for her. "I hope she is well?" he added, not attempting to conceal a certain accent of disappointment at her absence.
"Quite well when I heard from her," answered Mr. Dundas, doing his best to speak without embarrassment.
Mr. Gryce turned his face in frank astonishment on the speaker. "Ah! She is from home, then?" he asked.
"Yes," said Mr. Dundas curtly.
"I had not heard," lisped the tenant of Lionnet. "But I myself have been from home for a few days, and have just returned. Though, indeed, present or absent, I know very little of my neighbors' doings, as you may see. I did not even know that Miss Dundas was from home."
"Yet it was pretty widely talked about," said Mr. Dundas, with a certain suspicious glance at the cherubic face smiling innocently into his.
"Doubtless the absence of Miss Dundas must have caused a gap," replied Mr. Gryce, "but you see, as I said, I have been away myself, and when I am at home I do not gossip."