CHAPTER IX. A COMPROMISE. “Dear, dear grandpa! Has he been making you unhappy, too? What has he done? What has he been saying to you? Tell me all about it.” The earl felt two warm, loving arms around his neck, and a dear, treasured head pillowed on his bosom. By and by he looked up, and met the earnest, beseeching gaze of his beautiful ward--his grandchild of his heart--the one true, enduring love left to him in all the world. “Oh, Cordelia, my sweet child! God and all the good angels keep and bless thee!” And then, with many pauses, and many tears, he told the story of his interview with his grandson--all save that part of it which had reference to the smuggler’s son. Of that he spoke not yet. When this had been told, Cordelia gave a truthful account of the interview in the arbor; but she did not dwell upon it. She hurried through with it as rapidly as possible, and then broached a new subject. “Grandpa,” she said, with a world of eager inquiry in look and tone, “you have heard stories told of the old chapel of the Monks, on the crag--about its being haunted, and so on, haven’t you?” “Yes, darling. Those stories are older than I am.” “Well, what do you think about it? What did you ever think? Of course, you have had your thoughts.” “Really, my dear child, you puzzle me. I hardly know how to answer. I must have had a great many thoughts during all the years since, in my boyhood, I heard the first stories of the ghosts of the old chapel. And there was one thing curious. For many years--for almost two-score, I should say, those stories died out. “Of late, however, within ten or a dozen years, they have revived. I remember, it was during the very week of your father’s death, a number of our servants were frightened by a ghost--the ghost, they said, of a gray friar--wandering about the old ruin. But--but--it was, of course, the veriest nonsense.” Cordelia looked up into the old man’s face searchingly. She looked so sharply, and with so much of meaning in the look, that he shrank away from it, and his eyes, usually so honest and true, wavered. “Grandpa! grandpa! There is something you do not tell me. What is it? Come, you surely can have nothing that you would wish to hide from your darling.” “Child! child! why are you so eager? Ah! tell me, were you in the chapel through the storm? Why of course you were. You told me so. Did you see anything?” “Grandpa, I want you to answer me first. You ought to. You are the oldest, and should take the lead. Tell me, what was it you kept back from me?” Once more, after a little further hesitation, the frank, steady, and straightforward look came back to the old earl’s eyes; and he said, first casting a swift glance around: “Cordelia, the story I am going to tell you I have never told to anybody. It has puzzled me; and I have tried to solve the mystery involved; but I have kept it to myself.