‘What do you take me for, Cilla? I inquired at the station, but she had not been there, and on the Monday I went to London and saw the mother, who was in great distress, for she had had a letter much like mine, only more unsatisfactory, throwing out absurd hints about grandeur and prosperity—poor deluded simpleton!’
‘She distinctly says she is married.’
‘Yes, but she gives no name nor place. What’s that worth? After such duplicity as she has been practising so long, I don’t know how to take her statement. Those people are pleased to talk of a marriage in the sight of heaven, when they mean the devil’s own work!’
‘No, no! I will not think it!’
‘Then don’t, my dear. You were very young and innocent, and thought no harm.’
‘I’m not young—I’m not innocent!’ furiously said Cilly. ‘Tell me downright all you suspect.’
‘I’m not given to suspecting,’ said the poor clergyman, half in deprecation, half in reproof; ‘but I am afraid it is a bad business. If she had married a servant or any one in her own rank, there would have been no need of concealing the name, at least from her mother. I feared at first that it was one of your cousin Charles’s friends, but there seems more reason to suppose that one of the musical people at your concert at the castle may have thought her voice a good speculation for the stage.’
‘He would marry her to secure her gains.’
‘If so, why the secrecy?’
‘Mrs. Jenkins has taught you to make it as bad as possible,’ burst out Lucy. ‘O, why was not I at home? Is it too late to trace her and proclaim her innocence!’