I had purposely remained standing as a hint to her not to prolong the interview. The hint was thrown away; I took a chair.
“Selina’s letters had informed me,” she resumed, “that Mr. Gracedieu was a nervous invalid. When I came to England, I had hoped to try what massage might do to relieve him. The cure of their popular preacher might have advertised me through the whole of the Congregational sect. It was essential to my success that I should present myself as a stranger. I could trust time and change, and my married name (certainly not known to Mr. Gracedieu) to keep up my incognito. He would have refused to see me if he had known that I was once Miss Chance.”
I began to be interested.
Here was an opportunity, perhaps, of discovering what the Minister had failed to remember when he had been speaking of this woman, and when I had asked if he had ever offended her. I was especially careful in making my inquiries.
“I remember how you spoke to Mr. Gracedieu,” I said, “when you and he met, long ago, in my rooms. But surely you don’t think him capable of vindictively remembering some thoughtless words, which escaped you sixteen or seventeen years since?”
“I am not quite such a fool as that, Mr. Governor. What I was thinking of was an unpleasant correspondence between the Minister and myself. Before I was so unfortunate as to meet with Mr. Tenbruggen, I obtained a chance of employment in a public Institution, on condition that I included a clergyman among my references. Knowing nobody else whom I could apply to, I rashly wrote to Mr. Gracedieu, and received one of those cold and cruel refusals which only the strictest religious principle can produce. I was mortally offended at the time; and if your friend the Minister had been within my reach—” She paused, and finished the sentence by a significant gesture.
“Well,” I said, “he is within your reach now.”
“And out of his mind,” she added. “Besides, one’s sense of injury doesn’t last (except in novels and plays) through a series of years. I don’t pity him—and if an opportunity of shaking his high position among his admiring congregation presented itself, I daresay I might make a mischievous return for his letter to me. In the meanwhile, we may drop the subject. I suppose you understand, now, why I concealed my name from you, and why I kept out of the house while you were in it.”
It was plain enough, of course. If I had known her again, or had heard her name, I might have told the Minister that Mrs. Tenbruggen and Miss Chance were one and the same. And if I had seen her and talked with her in the house, my memory might have shown itself capable of improvement. Having politely presented the expression of my thanks, I rose to go.
She stopped me at the door.