It is true that when they corresponded, in answer to his ardent love-letters, she would write only such kind and friendly notes that could never have compromised her in any way, even if they should have been read in open court or published in a Sunday newspaper.
And he had sometimes complained of the formal friendliness of these letters from one for whom he had truly professed the most devoted love, and who had also promised to be his wife—if ever she was anybody's.
But Mrs. Grey had artfully soothed his wounded affection without departing from her prudential system of writing only such letters as she would not fear to have fall in the hands of any living creature, until suddenly he ceased to write at all.
At the time of this defection she had been too much taken up with her purpose of winning the affection of the wealthy and distinguished statesman, Governor Cavendish, to pay much attention to the fact of the Rev. Mr. Lyle's falling away.
But in these later and calmer days at Blue Cliffs and at Charlottesville she had pondered much on the circumstance in connection with her simultaneous dismissal from her situation at Mount Ascension; and she thought all but too likely that Mr. Lyle had, like Mrs. St. John, learned something of her past life so much to her disadvantage as to induce him to abandon her.
And now to have him so near Blue Cliffs as Wendover parish church seemed dangerous to Mary Grey's interests with the Cavendish family.
Sometimes the unhappy woman seemed to think that the net of Fate was drawing around her. Mrs. Fanning was at Blue Cliffs. Mr. Lyle was at Wendover. What next?
Why, next she got a letter from Emma Cavendish that struck all the color from her cheeks and all the courage from her soul.
Miss Cavendish, after telling the domestic and social news of the week, and adding that the Rev. Mr. Lyle was now settled permanently at Wendover, as the assistant of the Rev. Dr. Goodwin, whose health continued to be infirm, wrote:
"And now, dearest Mrs. Grey, I have reserved the best news for the last.