"Cupid’s a blind fool, we all know, and, of course, he didn’t realise what he was doing when he dropped Mabel Talbot in my way," said grandpapa one day.
The old man gave out now that he had five thousand a year, for I heard the servants discussing it; and Squire Talbot, to whose ear came this rumour, believed it, and greatly desired grandpapa for his son-in-law. The Squire was a clever, cunning aristocrat, and played on poor grandpapa’s love of admiration, and made much of him.
But to return; I met Miss Talbot, as I have said, and accepted her invitation to drive awhile.
"I want to talk to you, Mabel, about my grand----about dear Daniel," I began, as we trotted out on to Salisbury Plain. She blushed rosy red, and nearly overturned the little carriage.
"Oh, dear, dear Mrs. Dolphin, has he told you?"
Then, of course, I knew they were engaged.
No doubt the same old, sickening flight was upon us once more. The life I led was killing me. I certainly began to grow old as fast as grandpapa grew young. But this time they might be secretly married already for all I knew.
"He is going to see papa. I know my father will consent. And you, dear Mrs. Dolphin? May I be a little daughter to you? I will love you so dearly. I do already."
"Child," I answered, "you must face the truth and be brave. Daniel is much older--I mean younger--at least, he is different to what he seems. He can never marry again. Daniel has a great mystery hanging over his life. Supernatural agents are interested in him. He has violated all the laws of Nature--at least, I fancy so. I am not his mother at all. He is my grandfather. His real mother has been dead nearly a hundred years."
"No; Miss Dolphin. He is my grandfather I tell you. I am unmarried. He has signed an agreement with--it doesn’t matter. At any rate, he’s already been married three times. He’s a widower, and he cannot live more than three years, and----"
Mabel screamed, jumped from the pony carriage, and fell almost at the feet of a horseman who had overtaken us. It was grandpapa.
The girl ran sobbing to him, and I got out of the pony carriage. Grandfather, dismounting, took the trembling Mabel into his arms, on the high road, near some Druidical remains, and openly hugged her before me and the groom.
