“Then,” he asked in an anxious, hesitating tone, “would you consider that I was not quite so much a son—that any part of my duty to you was lost—if I wished to bring you a daughter, also?”.
“I know what you mean, Gilbert Betsy Lavender has told me all. I am glad you spoke of it, this day; it will put the right feeling of thanksgiving into my heart and yours. Martha Deane never stood between us, my boy; it was I that stood between you and her!”
“Mother!” he cried, a joyous light shining from his face, “you love her? You are willing that she should be my wife?”
“Ay, Gilbert; willing, and thankful, and proud.”
“But the very name of her struck you down! You fell into a deadly faint when I told you I had spoken my mind to her!”
“I see, my boy,” she said; “I see now why you never mentioned her name, from that time. It was not Martha Deane, but the name of the one you thought wanted to win her away from you,—your father's name, Gilbert,—that seemed to put a stop to my life. The last trial was the hardest of all, but don't you see it was only the bit of darkness that comes before the daylight?”
While this new happiness brought the coveted sense of thanksgiving to mother and son, and spread an unexpected warmth and peace over the close of the fateful day, there was the liveliest excitement in Kennett Square, over Miss Lavender's intelligence. That lady had been waylaid by a dozen impatient questioners before she could reach the shelter of Dr. Deane's roof; and could only purchase release by a hurried statement of the main facts, in which Alfred Barton's cruelty, and his wife's wonderful fidelity to her oath, and the justice done to her and Gilbert by the old man's will, were set forth with an energy that multiplied itself as the gossip spread.
In the adjoining townships, it was reported and believed, the very next day, that Alfred Barton had tried to murder his wife and poison his father—that Mary had saved the latter, and inherited, as her reward, the entire property.
Once safely housed, Miss Lavender enjoyed another triumph. She related the whole story, in every particular, to Martha Deane, in the Doctor's presence, taking especial care not to omit Alfred's words in relation to his enforced wooing.
“And there's one thing I mustn't forgit, Martha,” she declared, at the close of her narrative. “Gilbert sends word to you that he needs your true-love more 'n ever, and he's comin' up to see you to-morrow; and says I to him, The door's open, even accordin' to the Doctor's words; and so it is, for he's got his true name, and free to come. You're a man o' your word, Doctor, and nothin' 's been said or done, thank Goodness, that can't be easy mended!”