“I admit the proofs; but, great heavens, that a man could so change in so few years! My comrade in India! My friend, whom I loved as a brother! Who could have thought it of him? Elfrida, you knew him in your youth. Could you have believed this of him?”
“Not when I first met him in your company, my brother; but then I was a very young girl, scarcely fifteen years of age, and the judgment of such a girl on the merits of a young man, especially when he is a young officer in a brilliant uniform, and with a more brilliant military record, is not infallible, you know,” replied Mrs. Force, evasively.
“Yet you could not have believed this infamy of him.”
“No, certainly not,” replied the lady, more to soothe the nervous invalid than to express her own convictions.
“Believe me, I am deeply grieved to have been the instrument of giving you so much pain. I would not have told you had I not deemed it my duty to do so; nor even under that impression had I supposed it would have distressed you so much.”
“My dear Force, you were right to tell me, though the hearing gives me sorrow—sorrow and perplexity, for I cannot reconcile the story you have told and proved with all my previous knowledge of Anglesea. I wonder, has he become insane? I did hear that he had been terribly affected by the death of his wife, whom he adored. I was in Switzerland at the time, and when I returned to England, in the autumn, I heard that he had gone abroad. I think, perhaps, he may have become insane.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mr. Force, but he mentally added: “As much insane as, and no more, than every criminal is insane—morally insane, but not, therefore, irresponsible.”
“Force,” said the earl, “whatever may have been the cause of Anglesea’s fall, your daughter Odalite must be released from her bonds.”
CHAPTER XLII
ENDERBY CASTLE
While their elders consulted together in the library the four young girls, Odalite, Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary, accompanied by Le and escorted by Joshua, walked across the courtyard, and entered the old castle to explore its interior.