"Tell me again;" she said, "what will my rank and title be?"
"You will be the Lady Doris Studleigh, only daughter of the Earl of Linleigh——"
"And my fortune?" she interrupted.
"Of that I know nothing; but I should say it must be large. You will probably be a wealthy heiress."
"And there is a place waiting for me in the grand world?"
"Most certainly," he replied.
"Now, then, let me think, Earle; I am all bewilderment and confusion. Let me arrange my ideas, then I will explain them to you."
He did not know why she sat so silent, while quiver after quiver of pain passed over her face—why her hands were so tightly clasped; but she in that hour was reaping the reward of her folly.
What had she done? Had she, by her wicked sin, by her intense self-love, her eagerness for pleasure and luxury, her little esteem for virtue, her frivolous views of vice—had she by all these forfeited that glorious birth-right which was hers? Had she lost all chance of this grand position which would fill the greatest desire of her heart? It was this most terrible fear that blanched her face and made her hands tremble, that caused her to sit like one over whom a terrible blight had fallen. In her passionate desire for change and luxury, for pleasure and gayety, she had never even thought of her own degradation; it was a view of the subject that she had not yet taken; she had only thought of the lighter side. Now it seemed to look her in the face with all its natural deformity. She shrunk abashed and frightened—horror-stricken—now that she saw her enormity in its full colors.
Still, it was not the sin that distressed her; that was nothing to her. It was the idea that through it she might lose the glorious future awaiting her; if this had not happened, she would never have regretted her fault. If it were known—if this proud nobleman knew that she had passed as the wife of a man to whom she was not married, would he ever receive her as his daughter? No; she knew enough of the world to be quite sure of that. Even Mark Brace would not do it. If he had the faintest possible idea of what her life had been since they parted, would he receive her, and think her a suitable companion for Mattie? No; she knew that he would not; he would have forgiven any sin save that. A disgraceful sin like hers he considered beyond pardon.