"Rosalind!" ... he exclaimed, "are you hid there?... Where are all the rest? and how come you to be left alone?"
"I am left alone, Mr. Mowbray ... because I wished it. Helen and Fanny are with your mother, I believe, in her room."
Charles wished to see them all, and to see them together, and had almost turned to go; but there was something in the look and manner of Rosalind that puzzled him, and going up to her, he said kindly, "Is anything the matter, Rosalind? You look as if something had vexed you."
To his great astonishment she burst into tears, and turning from him as if to hide an emotion she could not conquer, she said, "Go, go, Mr. Mowbray—go to your mother—you ought to have gone to her instantly."
"Instantly?... When?... What do you mean, Miss Torrington?"
"Miss Torrington means, Mr. Mowbray, that it would in every way have been more proper for you to have announced to your mother yourself the strange will it has pleased your father to leave, instead of sending a stranger to do it."
"Who then has told her of it, Rosalind? Was it the lawyer? was it Mr. Humphries?"
"No sir—it was Mr. Cartwright."
"But why should you be displeased with me for this, dear Rosalind? Sir Gilbert led me out of the library by force, and would not let me go to my mother, as I wished to do, and I have but this instant got rid of him; but I did not commission either Mr. Cartwright or any one else to make a communication to her which I was particularly desirous of making myself."
"You did not send Mr. Cartwright to her?" said Rosalind colouring, and looking earnestly in his face.