"No, my child. Doris, you say nothing."
"What can I say? You are a great man to be sent for by a mighty earl. What can he want us for?"
"It has come at last!" said Mark. "Well, thank Heaven, we have done our duty. I shall not be afraid to face him or any one else."
Then Mark sat in silence till Earle came, when he dismissed the two girls from the room, little dreaming that Doris knew far more of her own story than he did.
"Read this," he said, placing the letter in Earle's hand, "then tell me what you think."
Earle read the letter attentively.
"I think," he said, "that this concerns Doris, and that you will most probably find the earl is either her father, or that he knows something of her parentage."
"I expected it," said Mark, with a deep sigh; "and Heaven knows, Earle, I shall be thankful to get the girl off my hands without any more trouble. She frightens me, my dear boy—she does, indeed; she is so unlike the rest of us. I am always wondering what she will do or say next; she is out of place here altogether. It will be a relief to me." And honest Mark wiped his brow with the air of one who was glad to get rid of a great burden. "My wife has more sense and better judgment than any woman in England," he continued, "and she thinks he will turn out to be Doris' father. Where is the mother, I wonder? What do you advise, Earle?"
"I advise you to do exactly what Lord Linleigh says. Start at once, and take the ladies with you. The matter is evidently pressing, or he would not write so urgently."
"I must go, then; but it is really a trouble, Earle. I can get on with an honest plowman or a sensible farmer, but with lords and ladies I am quite at sea. My dear boy, I dread them. I shall never forget what I went through with the duchess. Of course I know about all mankind being sons of Adam to begin with, but I like my own sort of people best, Earle."