’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 accusation?’

’I can hardly tell you that, Mary, any more than I can tell whether Warren Hastings deserved the abuse that was wreaked upon him at one time, or the acquittal that gave the lie to his slanderers in after years.  The events occurred forty years ago—­the story was only half known then, and like all such stories formed the basis for every kind of exaggeration and perversion.’

‘Does Maulevrier know?’ faltered Mary.

‘Maulevrier knows all that is known by the general public, and no more.’

‘And you have married the granddaughter of a disgraced man,’ said Mary, with a piteous look.  ‘Did you know—­when you married me?’

’As much as I know now, dear love.  If you had been Jonathan Wild’s granddaughter you would have been just as dear to me.  I married you, dearest; I love you; I believe in you.  All the grandfathers in Christendom would not shake my faith by one tittle.’

She threw herself into his arms, and sobbed upon his breast.  But sweet as this assurance of his love was to her, she was not the less stricken by shame at the thought of possible infamy in the past, a shameful memory for ever brooding over her name in the present.