* This was one of those involuntary inaccuracies which creep
into mortal statements.
Mrs. Dodd thanked her warmly; but asked her if she could not in the meantime give some idea of the contents.
“Oh yes, Mrs. Dodd: papa read me out a great deal of it. He was in Paris, but just starting for London: and he demanded his money and his accounts. You know papa is one of his trustees.”
“Well, but,” said Mrs. Dodd, “there was nothing—nothing about——?”
“Oh yes, there was,” said Jane, “only I—well then, for dear Julia's sake—the letter said, 'What wonder the son of a sharper should prove a traitor? You have stolen her money and I her affections, and'—oh, I can't, I can't.” And Jane Hardie began to cry.
Mrs. Dodd embraced her like a mother, and entered into her filial feelings: Mrs. Dodd had never seen her so weak, and, therefore, never thought her so amiable. Thus occupied they did not at first observe how these tidings were changing Julia.
But presently looking up, they saw her standing at her full height on fire with wrath and insulted pride.
“Ah, you have brought me comfort,” she cried. “Mamma, I shall hate and scorn this man some day, as much as I hate and scorn myself now for every tear I have shed for him.”
They tried to calm her, but in vain; a new gust of passion possessed the ardent young creature and would have vent. She reddened from bosom to brow, and the scalding tears ran down her flaming cheeks, and she repeated between her clenched teeth, “My veins are not filled with skim-milk, I can tell you: you have seen how I can love, you shall see how I can hate.” And with this she went haughtily out of the room, not to expose the passion which overpowered her.
Mrs. Dodd took advantage of her absence to thank Jane for her kindness, and told her she had also received some letters by this morning's post, and thought it would be neither kind on her part nor just to conceal their purport from her. She then read her a letter from Mrs. Beresford, and another from Mr. Grey, in answer to queries about the L. 14,000.