My dear Max, Penelope confessed a thing, for which I am very sorry, but it cannot be helped now.
I told you they never name you here. Not usually, but she did that night. Just as she was leaving me, she exclaimed, suddenly:—
“Dora, I have broken my promise—Francis knows about Doctor Urquhart.”
“What!” I cried.
“Don't be terrified—not the whole. Merely that he wanted to marry you, but that papa found out he had done something wrong in his youth, and so forbade you to think of him.”
I asked her, was she sure no more had escaped her? Not that I feared much; Penelope is literally accurate, and scrupulously straight forward in all her words and ways. But still, Francis being a little less so than she, might have questioned her.
“So he did, and I refused point-blank to tell him, saying it would be a breach of trust. He was very angry; jealous, I think,” and she smiled, “till I informed him that it was not my own secret—all my own secrets I had invariably told him, as he me. At which, he said, 'Yes, of course,' and the matter ended. Are you annoyed? Do you doubt Francis's honour?”
No. For all that, I have felt anxious, and I cannot choose but tell Max; partly because he has a right to all my anxieties, and, also, that he may guard against any possibility of harm. None is likely to come though; we will not be afraid.
Augustus, in his letter, says how highly he hears you spoken of in Liverpool already; how your duties at the gaol are the least of your work, and that whatever you do, or wherever you go, you leave a good influence behind you. These were his very words. I was proud, though I knew it all before.
He says you are looking thin, as if you were overworked. Max, my Max, take care. Give all due energy to the work you have to do, but remember me likewise; remember what is mine. I think, perhaps, you take too long walks between the town and the gaol, and that maybe, the prisoners themselves get far better and more regular meals than the doctor does. See to this, if you please, Doctor Urquhart.