The day of my departure arrived. Lord Leper took leave of me kindly, and asked for news of Rothsay. “Let me know when your friend returns,” my uncle said; “he belongs to a good old stock. Put me in mind of him when I next invite you to come to my house.”
On my way to the train I stopped of course at the lodge to say good-by. Mrs. Rymer came out alone I asked for Susan.
“My daughter is not very well to-day.”
“Is she confined to her room?”
“She is in the parlor.”
I might have been mistaken, but I thought Mrs. Rymer answered me in no very friendly way. Resolved to judge for myself, I entered the lodge, and found my poor little pupil sitting in a corner, crying. When I asked her what was the matter, the excuse of a “bad headache” was the only reply that I received. The natures of young girls are a hopeless puzzle to me. Susan seemed, for some reason which it was impossible to understand, to be afraid to look at me.
“Have you and your mother been quarreling?” I asked.
“Oh, no!”
She denied it with such evident sincerity that I could not for a moment suspect her of deceiving me. Whatever the cause of her distress might be, it was plain that she had her own reasons for keeping it a secret.
Her French books were on the table. I tried a little allusion to her lessons.