“Never deceive your father!” said the Sister, almost sternly; “but,” darting her gray eyes right into those dove-like orbs, “give me five minutes' start—IF YOU REALLY LOVE SIR CHARLES BASSETT.”
With these words she carried off the letter; and Bella ran, blushing, panting, trembling, to her father, and clung to him.
He questioned her, but could get nothing from her very intelligible until the Sister was out of sight, and then she told him all without reserve.
“I was unworthy of him to doubt him. An anonymous slander. I'll never trust appearances again. Poor Charles! Oh, my darling! what he must have suffered if he loves like me.” Then came a shower of happy tears; then a shower of happy kisses.
The admiral groaned, but for a long time he could not get a word in. When he did it was chilling. “My poor girl,” said he, “this unhappy love blinds you. What, don't you see the woman is no nun, but some sly hussy that man has sent to throw dust in your eyes?”
Nothing she could say prevailed to turn him from this view, and he acted upon it with resolution: he confined her excursions to a little garden at the back of the house, and forbade her, on any pretense, to cross the threshold.
Miss Somerset came to the square in another disguise, armed with important information. But no Bella Bruce appeared to meet her.
All this time Richard Bassett was happy as a prince.
So besotted was he with egotism, and so blinded by imaginary wrongs, that he rejoiced in the lovers' separation, rejoiced in his cousin's attack.
Polly, who now regarded him almost as a lover, told him all about it; and already in anticipation he saw himself and his line once more lords of the two manors—Bassett and Huntercombe—on the demise of Sir Charles Bassett, Bart., deceased without issue.