Part 13 (2/2)
She glanced at me curiously.
”Indeed!” she remarked. ”Then tell me why you came.”
”To discover that child's parentage, if possible,” I answered promptly.
”I want to discover who her friends are, who really has the right to take charge of her.”
”You perplex me, Arnold,” she said thoughtfully. ”I do not understand your position in the matter. I always looked upon you as a somewhat indolent person. Yet I find you now taking any amount of trouble in a matter which really does not concern you at all. Whence all this good-nature?”
”Lady Delahaye----”
”Eileen,” she interrupted softly.
”Lady Delahaye,” I answered firmly. ”You must forgive me if I remind you that I have no longer the right to call you by any other name. I am not good-natured, and I am afraid that I am still indolent. Nevertheless, I am interested in this child, and I intend to do my utmost to prevent her returning to this place.”
”I am still in the dark,” she said, looking at me curiously. ”She is nothing to you. A more unsuitable home for her than with three young men I cannot imagine. You seem to want to keep her there. Why? She is a child to-day, it is true--but in little more than a year's time she will be a woman. The position then for you will be full of embarra.s.sments.”
”I find the position now,” I answered, ”equally embarra.s.sing. We can only give the child up to you, send her back to the convent, or keep her ourselves. Of the three we prefer to keep her.”
”You seem to have a great distaste for the convent,” she remarked, ”but that is because you are not a Catholic, and you do not understand these things. She would at least be safe there, and in time, I think, happy.”
We were at the head of the village street now, upon a slight eminence. I pointed backwards to the prison-like building, standing grim and desolate on the bare hillside.
”I should consider myself no less a murderer than the man who shot your husband,” I answered, ”if I sent her there. I have made all the enquiries I could in the neighbourhood, and I have added to them my own impressions. The secular part of the place may be conducted as other places of its sort, but the great object of Madame Richard's sister is to pa.s.s her pupils from that into the religious portion. Isobel is not adapted for such a life.”
Lady Delahaye shrugged her shoulders.
”Well,” she said, ”I am a Catholic, so of course I don't agree with you.
But why do you hesitate to give the child up to me?”
I was silent for a moment. It was not easy to put my feeling into words.
”Lady Delahaye,” I said, ”you must forgive my reminding you that on the occasion of your visit to us you did not attempt to conceal the fact that your feelings towards her were inimical. Beyond that, I was pledged not to hand her back into your husband's care, and----”
”Pledged by whom?” she asked quickly.
”I am afraid,” I said, ”that I cannot answer you that question.”
She flashed an angry glance upon me.
”You pretend that the man who called himself Grooten was not your friend. Yet you have been in communication with him since!”
”I saw Mr. Grooten for the first time in my life on the morning of that day,” I answered.
”You know where he is now?” she asked, watching me keenly.
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