“‘But,’ he added kindly, ‘you, my child are too young to be prosecuted on such a matter, and Isola too old. She will return and repent, she is too true a daughter of the Church not to do so, but your mother never will. The world has had her heart throughout her sojourn here, and the world will claim its own.’
“Then he told me I was welcome to stay here as long as I pleased, as guest at the convent, or if I had other friends with whom I would prefer staying, he would have much pleasure in conducting me to them. Was he not a splendid man, papa?” added Amy enthusiastically, “he looked so noble and so good while he was speaking, he made me feel thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct, and the part I had played throughout. Of course I told him I would remain gratefully with the nuns till I heard from my mother or you, and then determining there should be no further deceit on my part, told him how I expected to hear through Isola’s nephew, a young woodcutter in the neighbourhood.
“How anxiously I longed and waited for news you may imagine, but a whole week passed, and still not a word. At length, about ten days after my mother’s departure, and when I was feeling positively sick with suspense, and a dread of what was coming, Isola herself, to my great amazement, appeared at the convent gates. I hastened down to her, dreading I knew not what.
“‘Where is my mother?’ was my first question—
“‘I left her in London,’ replied Isola, ‘she ordered me to return here to thee and await her orders, and I have done so. It was hard to part from her, she looked so young and beautiful, but she told me she would manage now her own affairs; that she was going down to the little country village to see him she loved so well, and that thou wouldst need an escort back to thy own country. I gave her all the money I had, and my old brown hood and cloak, and here I am, my child, to take care of thee.’ Then she handed to me a few short hurried lines from my mother, telling me ‘she was safe and happy, and knew well what she should do; that it might be some little time before she wrote again, but when all was happily arranged she would send for me, and I know,’ she concluded, ‘all will be happily arranged. I shall win him back; I have loved him so well I cannot lose him.’
“My heart sank as I read the note. Something told me the worst was to come, and as day after day slipped by, and not a line not a message from either father or mother, my brain began to grow dazed and stupid, and I think I really lost the power of reasoning. I dared not write to you; I felt how justly angry you must be with me, whatever your own fault, for having acted so madly and foolishly. I wandered backwards and forwards from the convent to Isola’s cottage, from Isola’s cottage to the convent, hoping for news, praying for news, and feeling the suspense to be more than I could bear. O, papa, papa!” concluded Amy, breaking down once more, and giving way to a passion of tears, “if you had not come when you did, your poor little Amy would have lost her reason altogether, or else have laid down to die from sheer weariness and sickness of heart.”
Gently and tenderly Mr. Warden soothed his daughter.
“My poor little girl,” he said, “you have been too much tried for one so young. This is the last time we will talk over this sad story, but before we lay it on one side for ever, you must hear one or two things it is only right you should know. Lord Hardcastle has told you no doubt most of what occurred during your absence, and all our grief for your loss, but did he tell you the part he has played throughout; what he has been to me all through our trials; and how it was he who guided us here? Tell me that Amy!”
“No,” replied Amy, “he has never mentioned anything of that kind to me. Indeed he has scarcely spoken to me the last few days, and whenever he looks at me, his eyes grow so large and cross, that I feel sure he is thinking in his own mind, ‘what an immense deal of trouble this self-willed silly girl has given us all! what a pity everyone is not as sensible and clever as I am!’”
Then Mr. Warden commenced from the very beginning, and told Amy every particular, even to the smallest detail, of all that had occurred during her absence. He spared her nothing. All his own grief and despair he laid bare before her, the solemn vow, too of Frank Varley and Lord Hardcastle, and how each had played their part. He recounted to her all the terrors of that dreadful night when death was in the house and the baying hound betrayed her mother’s presence. Step by step he led her on through the sad story of the finding of her mother’s body, his own broken-hearted sorrow, and Lord Hardcastle’s intense grief. Amy never lifted her eyes from his face, but drank in his every word and tone. Like one awaking from a dream, silent and enthralled she sat and listened. As Mr. Warden repeated to her Lord Hardcastle’s words in the library at the High Elms, “I want to be able to hold up a picture of the girl I love so truly, in all her innocence, and beauty, and purity, and to say to all the world, this is she whom I have loved in life, whom I love in death, whom I shall love after death, through eternity!” Amy sprang to her feet with clasped hands, exclaiming—