In utter bewilderment and amazement, with every nerve in her body jarring and trembling, Amy read and re-read her letter, and as she did so the conviction of its genuineness and truth forced itself upon her. Two thoughts only remained on her mind, the first, “my father told me a bitter cruel lie when he denied my mother to my face, and placed another in her stead;” the second, “my mother still lives! If I hasten I may yet see her before she dies. My darling, beautiful mother, whom unknowingly I have loved all through my life.”
Her anger against her father was only exceeded by one feeling, her intense, fervent love for her mother, whose image now stood out distinctly in her young memory. Isola’s words had brought back a whole world of recollections, the crowns of flowers, the mountain paths, the things which to her had seemed before but floating fancies or childish dreams, now took their right form as distinct vivid realities.
Not knowing anything of the circumstances which had brought about Mr. Warden’s separation from his first wife, to her excited imagination he appeared a perfect monster of wickedness, a cruel, fickle tyrant, who had cast off one who loved him truly, for the sake of another woman—
“He told me a lie,” she kept repeating to herself again and again, “to make me love that other woman, and to steel my heart against my own mother.”
Then the picture of that mother, lying sick unto death, rose before her mind, and one thought swept away every other.
“I will go to her at once,” she said with a wild cry, “at any risk, at any cost. Who knows, I may yet perhaps save her life.”
With Amy, to think was to act; not a moment’s hesitation now. There was another way to Dunwich station, besides the high road—a quiet way, which led through fields and lanes, a little circuitously, perhaps, and for that reason not likely to be traversed on the busy market day by any but gipsies or tramps. This road Amy at once took; she knew there was a train leaving for London about noon, and this she determined if possible to save. What was a five miles walk to a girl at her age, young, active and strong; besides had she not one all-absorbing thought to shorten her road, and lend wings to her feet—
“I am going to the mother I have dreamed of and loved all through my young life.”
Once arrived at Dunwich, she was pretty sure to escape recognition. The station (a junction, with a large amount of traffic) was on market days positively crowded, and Amy, passing rapidly through the throng, took her ticket, and seated herself in the London train without more than a casual glance from the guard, to whom she was personally unknown.
Then she had time for thought. But the more she thought, the more the difficulties of her position grew upon her. How could she act for the best? It was simply an impossibility for her to consult her father on the matter, for would not all his efforts be directed to keep her mother out of her rightful position, and would he who had lived so long in sin (so she thought) with another, be likely to have any sympathy for her in her present undertaking.