When Violet went to old Mrs. Dodson, the mother of the man she had loved and whose memory she cherished, she was fearful that the old lady would be grieved.
Perhaps Mrs. Dodson was, but all she said was:
"Violet, my dear, you will do what is right, I know, and—and if this seems to you right, do it. But do you love him?"
"I cannot do that," said Violet, kissing the old lady's hand with a loving tenderness. "You know where my heart is—it will never leave Leicester, never! But Mr. Murpoint does not ask me for love, but for respect and esteem."
"And you give him these?" asked Mrs. Dodson, with a slight shade on her brow.
Violet's face shadowed and reflected that shade of distrust, but almost instantly she replied:
"I cannot conceal anything from you who have been a mother to me, dear. One time I neither esteemed nor trusted Mr. Murpoint—indeed, I disliked him. But all that feeling has gone," she continued, hurriedly. "He has been a true, a kind friend to me—he was my father's friend, and how dare I distrust the man he loved and trusted. No, when the feeling I have spoken of has come over me I have cast it off as unworthy and unjust. Lately"—and she sighed—"it has not come. Mother, I seem to have no feeling, no emotion. Life is but a dream and a sleep to me sometimes, and I think that I shall wake perhaps, and—but there!" she broke off, springing to her feet and putting up her hand as if to ward off the feeling of unhappiness which was creeping upon her. "I will not give way to it. I will trust my father's best friend, and I will try with all my heart to be a good wife to him."
"Heaven bless you!" said Mrs. Dodson, sobbing. "Would that I could have been a mother indeed to you. But it was not to be. My boy was taken from your side, and it is not right that you should remain alone in the world, wedded to a shadow. Violet, you will not change to me? You will love me still?"
For answer the gentle girl threw her arms round the old lady's neck and burst into tears.
"You will always be my mother!" she said, "for are you not Leicester's?"