Part 50 (2/2)

Brans...o...b.., pleasantly. ”These trees look well enough: go to the eastern walk, and see what can be done there.”

Andrews, only too thankful for the chance of escape, picks up his knife again and beats a hasty retreat.

Then Georgie, turning to Graham, says slowly,--

”Now, tell me every word of it, from beginning to end.”

Her a.s.sumed unconsciousness has vanished. Every particle of color has flown from her face, her brow is contracted, her eyes are s.h.i.+ning with a new and most unenviable brilliancy. Perhaps she knows this herself, as, after the first swift glance at the woman on Andrews's departure, she never lifts her eyes again, but keeps them deliberately fixed upon the ground during the entire interview. She speaks in a low concentrated tone, but with firm compressed lips.

Graham's feelings at this moment would be impossible to describe.

Afterwards--many months afterwards--she herself gave some idea of them when she declared to the cook that she thought she should have ”swooned right off.”

”Oh, madam! tell you what?” she says, now, in a terrified tone, shrinking away from her mistress, and turning deadly pale.

”You know what you were speaking about just now when I came up.”

”It was nothing, madam, I a.s.sure you, only idle gossip, not worth----”

”Do not equivocate to me. You were speaking of Mr. Brans...o...b... Repeat your 'idle gossip.' I will have it word for word. Do you hear?” She beats her foot with quick impatience against the ground.

”Do not compel me to repeat so vile a lie,” entreats Graham, earnestly. ”It is altogether false. Indeed, madam,”--confusedly,--”I cannot remember what it was we were saying when you came up to us so unexpectedly.”

”Then I shall refresh your memory. You were talking of your master and--and of that girl in the village who----” The words almost suffocate her; involuntarily she raises her hand to her throat. ”Go on,” she says, in a low, dangerous tone.

Graham bursts into tears.

”It was the gardener at Hythe--old Andrews--who told it to our man here,” she sobs, painfully. ”You know he is his father, and he said he had seen the master in the copsewood the evening--Ruth Annersley ran away.”

”He was in London that evening.”

”Yes, madam, we all know that,” says the woman, eagerly. ”That alone proves how false the whole story is. But wicked people will talk, and it is wise people only who will not give heed to them.”

”What led Andrews to believe it was your master?” She speaks in a hard constrained voice, and as one who has not heard a word of the preceding speech. In truth, she has not listened to it, her whole mind being engrossed with this new and hateful thing that has fallen into her life.

”He says he saw him,--that he knew him by his height, his figure, his side-face, and the coat he wore,--a light overcoat, such as the master generally uses.”

”And how does he explain away the fact of--of Mr. Brans...o...b..'s being in town that evening?”

At this question Graham unmistakably hesitates before replying. When she does answer, it is with evident reluctance.

”You see, madam,” she says, very gently, ”it would be quite possible to come down by the mid-day train to Langham, to drive across to Pullingham, and get back again to London by the evening train.”

”It sounds quite simple,” says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., in a strange tone.

Then follows an unbroken silence that lasts for several minutes and nearly sends poor Graham out of her mind. She cannot quite see her mistress's face as it is turned carefully aside, but the hand that is resting on a stout branch of laurel near her is steady as the branch itself. Steady,--but the pretty filbert nails show dead-white against the gray-green of the bark, as though extreme pressure, born of mental agitation and a pa.s.sionate desire to suppress and hide it, has compelled the poor little fingers to grasp with undue force whatever may be nearest to them.

<script>