In the course of his life he had met a great many
people; he might know something about Brownson. Any way, I would throw
out some feelers in that direction.
"Yes," I remarked to him, in the course of a conversation about the late
Mother Superior, "what she is going to do is a very fine thing,--a noble
enterprise, and she is just the sort of person to go into it, but after
all I would rather see her married to the right sort of man. A woman
like that owes it to society to be married."
"I fancy," said Walkirk, "that she has permanently left the marrying
class. When she broke with Brownson, I think she broke with marriage."
"What were the points of that?" I asked. "Did you ever happen to hear
anything about him?"
"I knew him very well," answered Walkirk. "Those were his prints I was
cataloguing just before I entered your service. He had then been dead a
year or more, and I was working for the estate."
I arose and went to the window. I wiped my forehead, which had become
moist. If this man had known Brownson, why should he not know all? Was
he familiar with both engagements? It made me sick to think of it. There
was no sense or reason in such emotion, for it was not likely that
Sylvia's engagement had been a secret one; but I had a proud soul and
could not bear to think that people about me, especially Walkirk, should
be aware of Sylvia's attachment, slight as it may have been, to another
than myself.
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