And
you must come and tell me. May I depend upon you?"
He had become grave. At length he said: "I shall go straight to
Rowan and ask him."
"No!" she cried, laying her hand heavily on his arm, "Isabel bound
me to secrecy. She does not wish this to be known."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, angry at being entrapped into a broken
confidence, "then Miss Isabel binds me also: I shall honor her
wish," and he rose.
She kept her seat but yawned so that he might notice it. "You are
not going?"
"Yes, I am going. I have stayed too long already. Good night!
Good night!" He spoke curtly over his shoulders as he hurried down
the steps.
She had forgotten him before he reached the street, having no need
just then to keep him longer in mind. She had threshed out the one
grain of wheat, the single compact little truth, that she wanted.
This was the certainty that Judge Morris, who was the old family
lawyer of the Merediths, and had been Rowan's guardian, and had
indeed known him intimately from childhood, was in ignorance of any
reason for the present trouble; otherwise he would not have said
that he should go to Rowan and ask the explanation. She knew him
to be incapable of duplicity; in truth she rather despised him
because he had never cultivated a taste for the delights and
resources of hypocrisy.
Her next step must be to talk at once with the other person vitally
interested--Rowan's mother. She felt no especial admiration for
that grave, earnest, and rather sombre lady; but neither did she
feel admiration for her sterling knife and fork: still she made
them serviceable for the ulterior ends of being.
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