Mrs. Clarendon and Rhoda Meres exchanged glances, and for an instant there was a rather awkward silence. Isabel found a subject, and talked with her wonted vivacity.
Ada did not return. About half-past ten Rhoda began to make preparations for departure; she went to one of the windows, and held the blind aside a little to look out at the night.
“Oh! what a moon!” she exclaimed. “Mrs. Clarendon, do let us just go out for a minute on to the lawn; the country is so wonderful at night.”
Wrappers were at hand for the ladies, and the three went out together. The whole scope of visible heavens was pale with light; the blacker rose the circle of trees about Knights Well. The leaves made their weird whispering, each kind with its separate voice; no other sounds came from the sleeping earth.
“We often hear the nightingale,” Isabel said, lowering her voice. “Perhaps it’s too early yet.”
Then she added:
“This is the hour of our poet’s inspiration.”
“What poet?” asked Robert.
“Our poet in the cottage; don’t you remember?”
“Ah, the morbid young man. Poor fellow!”
Isabel suppressed a low laugh.
“Come, Rhoda dear, it’s cold,” she said to the girl, who had drawn a little apart.
Rhoda followed in silence, her head bent. In the hall she took her candle, and bade the two a hasty good-night.
“Why is she crying?” asked Robert, under his voice, as he entered the drawing-room again with Isabel.
The latter shook her head, but did not speak. She moved about the room for a moment; the shawl had half slipped from her shoulders, and made a graceful draping. Asquith stood watching her.
She approached him.
“I half hinted,” she began, “that I had a selfish object in asking you to come here. We are good friends, are we not?—old and good friends?”
There was a beautiful appeal upon her face, anxiety blending with a slight embarrassment. She had put aside the mask of light-heartedness, and that which it had all day been in her countenance to utter freely exposed itself. It was not so much as distress; rather, impatience of some besieging annoyance. She was more beautiful now than when Robert had read her face seventeen years ago. Still, he regarded her with his wonted smile. There was much kindness in his look; nothing more than kindness.
“The best of friends, Isabel, I hope,” he replied to her.
“I am going to ask you to do something for me,” she continued. “Will you sit down and listen to me? I am not sure that I do right in asking this favour of you, but you are the only one of my relatives whom I feel able to talk freely with, and I think I had rather you than any one else did this thing that I am going to ask. Perhaps you will find it too disagreeable; if so, tell me—you will promise to speak freely?”
“Certainly, I promise.”
They had taken their seats. Asquith rested one of his arms on a small table, and waited, the smile lingering. Isabel gathered the shawl about her, as if she felt cold. She was a trifle pale.
“You understand perfectly,” she resumed, with a certain abruptness, which came of the effort it cost her to broach the subject, “the meaning of Ada Warren’s presence in this house?”
“Perfectly, I think,” her cousin replied, with a slight motion of his eyebrows.
“That is to say,” pursued Isabel, looking at the fringe of her shawl, “you know the details of Mr. Clarendon’s will?”
He paused an instant before replying.
“Precisely,” was his word, as he tapped the table.
Isabel smiled, a smile different from that with which she was wont to charm. It was one almost of self-contempt, and full of bitter memories.
“I had never heard of her,” she continued, “until I was called upon to take her as my own child. Then she was sent to me from people who had had the care of her since she was three years old.”
Asquith slowly nodded, wrinkling his forehead.
“Well, we will speak no more of that. What I wish to ask you to do for me is this:—Oh, I am ashamed to speak of it! It is something that I ought to have done myself already. But I am a coward; I have always been a coward. I can’t face the consequences of my own—my own baseness; that is the true word. Will you tell Ada Warren what her real position is, and what mine?”
Asquith raised his head in astonishment.
“She is still ignorant?”
“I have every reason to believe so. I don’t think any one will have told her.”
Robert bit his upper lip.
“Has she never asked questions about her origin?”
“Yes, but only once. I told her that her parents were friends of Mr. Clarendon, and that she was an orphan, therefore I had taken her. That was several years ago.”
Again there was a pause in the dialogue. Isabel had difficulty in keeping her face raised; her cheeks had lost their pallor, the blood every now and then made them warm.
“She seems a strange being,” Asquith remarked. “I am not as a rule tempted to puzzle about people’s characteristics, but hers provoke one’s curiosity.”
“I cannot aid you,” Isabel said, speaking quickly. “I know her as little as on the day when I first saw her. I have tried to be kind; I have tried to——”
She broke off. Her voice had begun to express emotion, and the sound seemed to recall her to self-command. She looked up, smiling more naturally, though still with a touch of shame.
“Will you help me, cousin?” she asked.
“Certainly I will do what you wish. Do you desire me to explain everything in detail——”
“The will, the will,” she interposed, with a motion of her hand. “Yes, the full details of the will.”
“And if she asks me——?”
“You know nothing—that is best. You cannot speak to her on such a subject. Will you wait for me a moment?”
She rose hastily and left the room. Asquith remained standing till her return. She was only a few moments absent, and came back with a folded paper in her hand.
“This,” she said, “is a full copy of the will. It might be best to read it to her, or even to let her have it to read herself. She may keep it if she wishes to.”
Asquith took the paper and stood in thought.
“You have well considered this?” he asked.
“Oh, for long enough. I thank you for your great kindness.”
“When shall I see her? To-morrow is Sunday. Does she go to church?”
“Never.”
“Then I will take the opportunity, whilst you and Miss Meres are away.”
Isabel gave him her hand, and they exchanged good-nights.
CHAPTER IV.
Robert Asquith was in the garden before breakfast next morning, with untroubled countenance, scrutinising objects