“You seem to be much attached to my cousin, Miss Malcolm,” Mr. Treverton said presently.
“I love him dearly,” she answered, looking up at him with those deep dark eyes, which had a melancholy expression tonight. “I have had no one else to care for since I was quite a child; and he has been very good to me. I should be something worse than ungrateful if I did not love him as I do.”
“And yet your life must have been a trying one, as the sole companion of an old man of Jasper Treverton’s eccentric temper. I speak of him as I have heard him described by my father. You must have found existence with him rather troublesome, now and then, I should think.”
“I very soon learnt to understand him, and to bear all the little changes in his humour. I knew that his heart was noble.”
“Humph,” thought John Treverton, “women can do these things better than men. I couldn’t stand being shut up with a crusty old fellow for a week.”
And after having made this reflection, he thought that no doubt Miss Malcolm was of the usual type of sycophants and interlopers, able to endure anything in the present for the chance of a stupendous advantage in the future, able to wait for the fruition of her hopes with a dull, grovelling patience.
“This appearance of grief is all put on, of course,” he said to himself. “I am not going to think any better of her because she has fine eyes.”
They sat for a little time in silence, Laura Malcolm seeming quite absorbed by her own thoughts, and in no way disturbed by the presence of John Treverton. It was a proud face which he looked at every now and then so thoughtfully, not a loveable face by any means, in spite of its beauty. There was a coldness of expression, a self-contained air about Miss Malcolm which her new acquaintance was inclined to dislike. He had come to that house prepared to think unfavourably of her, had come there indeed with a settled dislike to her.
“I think it is to you I am indebted for the telegram that summoned me here?” he said by-and-bye.
“Oh, no, not to me directly. It was your cousin’s wish that you should be sent for—a wish he only expressed on Monday, though I had asked him many times if he would not like to see you, his only surviving relative. Had I known your address, or where a letter would reach you, I think I should have ventured to ask you to come down without his permission, but I had no knowledge of this.”
“And it was only the day before yesterday that my cousin spoke of me for the first time?”
“Only the day before yesterday. On every previous occasion he gave me a short, impatient answer, telling me not to worry him, and that he had no wish to see anyone, but on Monday he mentioned your name, and told me he wanted particularly to see you. He had no idea where you were to be found, but he thought a telegram addressed to your father’s old lawyer would reach you. I sent the message as he directed.”
“The lawyer had some difficulty in hunting me out, but I lost no time after I got your message. I cannot, of course, pretend any attachment to a man whom I never saw in my life, but I am pleased that Jasper Treverton should have thought of me at the last, nevertheless. I am here to testify my respect for him, in a perfectly independent character, having not the faintest expectation of inheriting one shilling of his wealth.”
“I don’t know why you should not expect to inherit his estate, Mr. Treverton.” Laura Malcolm answered, quietly. “To whom else should he leave it, if not to you?”
John Treverton thought this question a piece of gratuitous hypocrisy.
“Why to you, of course,” he replied, “his adopted daughter, who have earned his favour by years of patient submission to all his whims and fancies. Surely you must be quite aware of his intentions upon this point, Miss Malcolm, and this affected ignorance of the subject is intended to hoodwink me.”
“I am sorry you should think so badly of me, Mr. Treverton. I do not know how your cousin has disposed of his money, but I do know that none of it has been left to me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have been assured of it by his own lips, not once, but many times. When he first adopted me he made a vow that he would leave me no part of his wealth. He had been treated with falsehood and ingratitude by those he had loved, and had found out their mercenary feelings about him. This had soured him a good deal, and he was determined—when he took me under his care out of motives of the purest charity—that he would have one person about him who should love him for his own sake, or not pretend to love him at all. He took an oath to this effect on the night he first brought me home to this house, and fully explained the meaning of that oath to me, though I was quite a child at that time. ‘I have had toadies and sycophants about me, Laura,’ he said, ‘until I have come to distrust every smiling face. Your smiles shall be true, my dear, for you shall have no motive for falsehood.’ On my eighteenth birthday he placed in trust six thousand pounds for my benefit, in order that his death should not leave me unprovided for, but he took occasion at the same time to remind me that this gift was all I must ever expect at his hands.”
John Treverton heard this with a quickened breath, and a new life and eagerness in the expression of his face. The aspect of affairs was quite altered by the fact of this oath
