“Mr. Underwood of Vale Leston—Gerald Underwood,” answered Dolores. “His father made an unfortunate marriage with a singer. She really is his half-sister, and I promised to do all I could to help him to find her and save her. He is at Oxford. I shall telegraph to him the first thing to-morrow.”
There was nothing in this to object to, and Miss Hackett would not be persuaded not to see her to the door of Miss Vincent’s lodgings, though lengthening her own walk—alone, a thing more terrible to her old-fashioned mind than to that of her companion.
Dolores wrote her telegram—
“Dolores Mohun, Valentia, Silverton, to Gerald Underwood, Trinity College, Oxford. Ludmilla here. Circus. Come.”
She sent it with the more confidence that she had received a letter from her father with a sort of conditional consent to her engagement to Gerald, so that she could, if needful, avow herself betrothed to him; though her usual reticence made her unwilling to put the matter forward in the present condition of affairs. She went out to the post-office at the first moment when she could hope to find the telegraph office at work, and just as she had turned from it, she met a girl in a dark, long, ill-fitting jacket and black hat, with a basket in her hand.
“Lydia!” exclaimed Dolores, using the old Rockquay name.
“Miss Dolores!” she cried.
“Yes, yes. You are here! I saw you last night.”
“Me! Me! Oh, I am ashamed that you did. Don’t tell Mr. Flight.”
There were tears starting to her eyes.