But she never alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van Brandt; and not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only conclude that she had something important to say in relation to herself or to me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from giving expression to it at that time.
Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on the subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to Shetland. Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss Dunross. Here, again, when I least expected it, there was another surprise in store for me.
"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green flag which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were both children. Have you really kept it all this time?"
"Yes."
"Where have you left it? In Scotland?"
"I have brought it with me to London."
"Why?"
"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever I might go."
My mother smiled.
"Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young lady in Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, you believe in the green flag being the means of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself together again?"
"Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor Miss Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after all I owed to her kindness?"
The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me attentively.
"Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression on you," she said.
"I own it. I feel deeply interested in her."
"If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might have become interested in Miss Dunross--perhaps in the character of my daughter-in-law?"
"It is useless, mother, to speculate on what might have happened. The sad reality is enough."
My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me.
"Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your presence, when there happened to be light in the room?"
"Always."
"She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?"
"Never."
"And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?"
"You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told me the truth."
"No, George. I only doubt whether she told you all the truth."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more serious reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that she gave you."
I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never occurred to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of morbid nervous sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss Dunross, as described by herself--and that had been enough for me. Now that my mother's idea had found its way from her mind to mine, the impression produced on me was painful in the last degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my brain, and profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections of Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject--the evil influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by talk. Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my mother's room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where alone I could hope to find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van Brandt.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT.
THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful anticipations. The poor lodger looked already "like another woman"; and the child was at that moment posted on the stairs, watching for the return of her "new papa."
"There's one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you go upstairs," the woman went on. "Don't trust the lady with more money at a time than the money that is wanted for the day's housekeeping. If she has any to spare, it's as likely as not to be wasted on her good-for-nothing husband."
Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind, I had thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"Where he ought to be," was the answer. "In prison for debt."
In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a man imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being shortened by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt.
Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the upper landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a cake for her on my way to the house. She forthwith turned over the doll to my care, and, trotting before me into the room with her cake in her arms, announced my arrival in these words:
"Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him better, too."
The mother's wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale again, as she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously, and discerned the welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed. Her grand gray eyes rested on me again with a glimmer of their old light. The hand that had lain so cold in mine on the past night had life and warmth in it now.
"Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?" she asked, softly. "Have you saved my life for the second time? I can well believe it."
Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and touched it tenderly with her lips. "I am not an ungrateful woman," she murmured--"and yet I don't know how to thank you."
The child looked up quickly from her cake. "Why don't you kiss him?" the quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of astonishment.
Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly.
"No more of Me!" she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. "Tell me what happy chance brought you here last night?"
"The same chance," I answered, "which took me to Saint Anthony's Well."
She raised herself eagerly in the chair.
"You have seen me again--as you saw me in the summer-house by the waterfall!" she exclaimed. "Was it in Scotland once more?"
"No. Further away than Scotland--as far away as Shetland."
"Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!"
I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master of the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my sojourn under Mr. Dunross's roof.
"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to the end.
"What is strange?" I asked.
She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes.
"I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought to have no concealments in such a matter from you. I understand everything that you have told me--with one exception. It seems strange to me that you should only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the house in Shetland."
"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired.