t look seriously in your
grandmother's face, and yet delude yourself with the hope that she has
years of life before her.'

'It will be very hard to part, just as she has begun to care for me,'
said Mary, with her eyes full of tears.

'All such partings are hard, and your grandmother's life has been so
lonely and joyless that the memory of it must always have a touch of
pain. One cannot say of her as we can of the happy; she has lived her
life--all things have been given to her, and she falls asleep at the
close of a long and glorious day. For some reason which I cannot
understand, Lady Maulevrier's life has been a prolonged sacrifice.'

'She has always given us to understand that she was fond of Fellside,
and that this secluded life suited her,' said Mary, meditatively.

'I cannot help doubting her sincerity on that point. Lady Maulevrier is
too clever a woman, and forgive me, dear, if I add too worldly a woman,
to be content to live out of the world. The bird must have chafed its
breast against the bars of the cage many and many a time when you
thought that all was peace. Be sure, Mary, that your grandmother had a
powerful motive for spending all her days in this place, and I can but
think that the old man we saw the other night had some part in that
motive. Do you remember telling me of her ladyship's vehement anger when
she heard you had made the acquaintance of her pensioner?'

'Yes, she was very angry,' Mary answered, with a troubled look. 'I
never saw her so angry--she was almost beside herself--said the harshest
things to me--talked as if I had done some dreadful mischief.'

'Would she have been so moved, do you think, unless there was some fatal
secret involved in that man's presence here?'

'I hardly know what to think. Tell me everything. What is it that you
fear?--what is it that you suspect?'

'To tell you my fears and suspicions is to tell you a family secret that
has been kept from you out of kindness all the years of your life--and I
hardly think I could bring myself to that if I did not know what the
world is, and how many good-natured friends Lady Hartfield will meet in
society, by-and-by, ready to tell her, by hints and inuendoes, that her
grandfather, the Governor of Madras, came back to England under a cloud
of disgrace.'

'My poor grandfather! How dreadful!' exclaimed Mary, pale with pity and
shame. 'Did he deserve his disgrace, poor unhappy creature--or was he
the victim of false accusat