CHAPTER XXXIV.
| "Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: |
| The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, |
| And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. |
| The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout |
| Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur |
| Made her cheeks flame: ... the blind walls |
| Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead |
| Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she |
| Not less thro' all bore up."—Tennyson. |
Gregory Dexter kept his word. He telegraphed to Miss Teller and to Miss Teller's lawyers. He thought of everything, even recalling to Anne's mind that she ought to write to her pupils and to the leader of the choir, telling them that she expected to be absent from the city for several days. "It would be best to resign all the places at once," he said. "After this is over, they can easily come back to you if they wish to do so."
"It may make a difference, then, in my position?" said Anne.
"It will make the difference that you will no longer be an unknown personage," he answered, briefly.
His dispatch had produced a profound sensation of wonder in the mind of Miss Teller, and excitement in the minds of Miss Teller's lawyers. Helen's aunt, so far, had not been able to form a conjecture as to the identity of the mysterious young girl who had visited her niece, and borne part in that remarkable conversation; Bagshot's description brought no image before her mind. The acquaintance with Anne Douglas, the school-girl at Madame Moreau's was such a short, unimportant, and now distant episode in the brilliant, crowded life of her niece that she had forgotten it, or at least never thought of it in this connection. She had never heard Helen call Anne "Crystal." Her imagination was fixed upon a girl of the lower class, beautiful, and perhaps in her way even respectable—"one of those fancies which," she acknowledged, "gentlemen sometimes have," the tears gathering in her pale eyes as she spoke, so repugnant was the idea to her, although she tried to accept it for Heathcote's sake. But how could Helen have known a girl of this sort? Was this, too, one of those concealed trials which wives of "men of the world" were obliged to endure?
Neither did Isabel or Rachel think of Anne. To them she had been but a school-girl, and they had not seen her or heard of her since that summer at Caryl's; she had passed out of their remembrance as entirely as out of their vision. Their idea of Helen's unknown visitor was similar to that which occupied the mind of Miss Teller. And in their hearts they had speculated upon the possibility of using money with such a person, inducing her to come forward, name herself, and deny Bagshot's testimony point-blank, or at least the dangerous portions of it. It could not matter much to a girl of that sort what she had to say, provided she were well paid for it.
Miss Teller and the lawyers were waiting to receive Anne, when, late in the evening, she arrived, accompanied by Mr. Dexter. The lawyers had to give way first to Miss Teller.
"Oh, Anne, dear child!" she cried, embracing the young girl warmly; "I never dreamed it was you. And you have come all this way to help us! I do not in the least understand how; but never mind—never mind. God bless you!" She sobbed as she spoke. Then seeing Dexter, who was standing at some distance, she called him to her, and blessed him also. He received her greeting in silence. He had brought Anne, but he was in no mood to appreciate benedictions.