Mary Gray | Page 8

child of his heart. Those three
twins are merely the children of his home. That poor drudge of a
mother of theirs! Mary is the child of her father's heart and mind."
Then aloud: "You had better let me have her, Mr. Gray."
"Let you have her, Lady Anne? What would you do with my Mary?"
He looked scarcely less aghast than he had done a moment before at the
suggestion of consumption.

"Not separate her from you, Mr. Gray. This house is my home, and I
am not likely to leave it, except for a month or two at a time, at my age.
I think the child will be a companion to me. I have no romantic
suggestions to make. I am not proposing to adopt Mary. I shall pay her
a salary, and give her opportunities for education that you cannot. She
interests me, as I have said. Let me have her. When I no longer need
her--I am an old woman, Mr. Gray--she will be fit to earn her own
living. Everything I have goes back to my nephew Jarvis Lord
Iniscrone. But Mary will not suffer. Think! What have you to give her
but a life of drudgery under which she will break down--die, perhaps?"
She watched the emotion in his face with her little keen, bright eyes.
"It is not a fine lady's caprice?" he said. "You won't make my Mary
accustomed to better things than I could give her and then send her
back to be a drudge?"
"The Lord judge between thee and me," she answered solemnly.
"Then I trust you, Lady Anne Hamilton," he said.
The strange thing was that the proud old lady was gratified, almost
flattered, by the confidence in Walter Gray's unworldly eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Gray," she said; then, as he took up his hat to go, she
laid a detaining hand on his shabby coat sleeve.
"Why not have dinner with Mary in the garden?" she suggested. "Do,
pray. I want you to tell her what we have agreed upon. I can send word
to Mrs. Gray."
Walter Gray was pleased enough to go back to his little girl whom he
had left in tears for the comfortless house and the burden of the young
stepbrothers and stepsisters. It was pleasure, half pain, to see the
uplifted face with which Mary regarded him when she saw him return.
How was he going to put the barrier between them that this plan to
which he had given his consent would surely mean? He had no
illusions. Over the wall, Lady Anne had said. But the wall that

separated Wistaria Terrace and the Mall was in reality a high and a
great wall. He would never have Mary in the old close communion
again. All passes. How good the old times were that were only a few
hours away, yet seemed worlds! Never again! They would never be all
and all to each other in a solitude which took no count of the others.
Yet it was for Mary's sake. For Mary's sake the wall was to rise
between them. As he began to tell her the strange, wonderful thing, his
heart was heavy within him because a chapter of his life was closed. He
had come to the end of an epoch. Henceforth things might be
conceivably better, but--they would be different.
CHAPTER III
THE NEW ESTATE
Mary took the news of her great promotion in an unthankful spirit.
"Lady Anne is very kind," she said tearfully; "but I don't want to stay
with her. I couldn't bear to live anywhere but in Wistaria Terrace. It is
absurd that you should say you have given your consent, papa. How
could you possibly have consented when the house could not get on
without me? You know it could not. Why, even for a day things would
be all topsy-turvy without me."
"And so you have not gone to school," the father answered, with an
accent of self-reproach. "You have been weighed down with
responsibilities and cares that you ought to have been free of for years
to come. You have even been stunted in your growth, as Lady Anne
said. It is time things were altered. I don't know how I was so blind. We
ought to be grateful to the accident that has opened a door to us."
When he had gone, Lady Anne came and comforted Mary. There was a
deal of kindness in the old lady's heart.
"You shall help them," she said. "Dear me, how much help you will be
able to give them! Imagine beginning with a salary at fifteen! You are
to leave things to me, Mary. I have sent help to your stepmother--an
excellent woman, Mrs. Devine, whom I have known for many