Slowly the words dropped from Doris's lips, "I cannot marry you, because I am engaged to Norman Sinclair."
"Engaged to Norman Sinclair?" Bernard repeated indignantly. "Then it is true, that tale they told me in London. You--my promised wife--have engaged yourself to marry that man!"
"Yes, it--is--true," again the words dropped falteringly from the poor girl's lips. "But I could not help it, Bernard," she added, quickly. "I could not help it--I was obliged. You see, you did not write. There was nothing before me except starvation; and then Norman came to me with his offer, and I was tempted. Oh, Bernard!" she exclaimed, "why did you not write? I waited and waited for a letter so anxiously, especially after I had told you about Mr. Sinclair's offer. Oh, you might have written just one line!" She looked at him with reproach in her blue eyes.
"My dear girl, I did not receive that letter, or any at all from you after the first week of my return to Moss, although I wrote repeatedly. Some one has suppressed our letters, Doris!"
"Cruel! Cruel!" cried the girl, instantly suspecting who it was. "But how was it that, not hearing, you did not come to me in order to ascertain the reason? It is such a long, long time since you returned to Yorkshire, almost a year--and it seems more."
"I have been so ill," replied Bernard sadly, "and when I recovered from my first illness, I caught chills and had bad relapses. I was not out of the doctor's hands during nine months, and my mother nursed me so devotedly. How could I suspect that at the same time she was grievously injuring you and me?"
"And then there was another thing," complained poor Doris. "I wrote to Susan, our old servant, you know, and asked her about you; whereupon she replied that I was to think no more about you, as she had heard on good authority that you were going to marry a young lady at Doncaster."
"Oh, but you couldn't believe that, Doris? Surely you had more faith in my love!" exclaimed Bernard, reproachfully.
"What else could I believe when you never wrote and she said that?"
"Doris, I should not have believed it of you!" exclaimed Bernard, stopping short, with a little frown, as he remembered that she had become engaged to Norman Sinclair.