Alice awaited the reply with an intense anxiety upon her face. Carry was very pale, and was a moment before she answered.
“Miss Heathcote, I wish I could tell you that it was as you hope. I have forgiven him, and wish him no ill. But it was not so. He over and over again promised to marry me. He swore it on the Bible. He said if his uncle did not die in a month or two, as he expected, he would marry me privately. I can show you his letter,” she added; “I have it still.”
“It is not necessary,” Miss Heathcote said, sadly. “I feel you are telling me only the truth. Oh, Carry,” and she burst into tears, “if you knew how I have hoped against hope—how I buoyed myself up all these years with the faith that when your father said that he had deliberately deceived you under promise to marry you, he said so only in his grief and anger. But it is all over now. Only from your own lips could I have believed that Frank Maynard would have——.”
“I beg your pardon,” Carry said, turning very white again, and trembling all over. “Who did you say?”
Seeing her agitation, Alice said hastily, “I beg your pardon for paining you by mentioning his name.”
“Who did you say?” again Carry asked.
“Frank Maynard,” Alice said, surprised at this strange conduct.
“Frank Maynard!” Carry said. “Is it Frank Maynard who has been accused all this time?”
“Yes, yes,” Alice said, the possibility of a mistake flashing across her, and leaping up, she seized Carry by the shoulders. “Oh, Carry, Carry, for God’s sake tell me it was not he—tell me, and I will fall on my knees and bless you. Tell me it was not he.”
“Frank Maynard!” again Carry repeated. “I never saw him but once. No; it was Captain Bradshaw’s nephew, Mr. Bingham.”