Dorothy's Double. Volume 2 (of 3)

by G. A. Henty

Danvers went out to the carriage with them. 'I congratulate you most heartily, Miss Hawtrey,' he said. 'There is no doubt that this will immensely strengthen your position. It has had, at any rate, a great effect on the mind of Levine. It is not often he has to own that his first impressions are entirely erroneous. I will come round this evening if you will be at home.'

'We will be at home, Danvers,' Mr. Hawtrey said, 'and I particularly want to see you about another matter. Come to dinner. Half-past seven. Can you come too, Singleton?' he went on as the carriage drove off. 'You are in the thick of it now, and are indeed one of the parties interested, for of course I shall see that you are not a loser by your intended kindness to Dorothy.'

'If I hear any nonsense of that sort,' Mr. Singleton said, hotly, 'I will get out of the carriage at once and have nothing more to do with the affair. Dorothy is my god-daughter, and if I choose to give her one thousand or ten I have a perfect right to do so. So let us hear no more about it.'

Mr. Hawtrey shook his old friend warmly by the hand. 'You always were an obstinate fellow,' he said 'and I suppose I must let you have your own way. Dorothy, I think I will get out at the top of St. James's Street, and if Ned Hampton is not in leave my card with a line, asking him to join us at dinner. He has worked most nobly for us, Singleton, as I told you last night, and ought certainly to be told of this new development. It will make us an odd number, for my cousin, Mary Daintree, has—I was going to remark I am glad to say, but I suppose I oughtn't—not yet recovered from the shock given her by Dorothy breaking off her engagement, and is keeping to her bed. However, it does not matter about there being an odd number.'

'Of course you can ask Captain Hampton if you like, father,' Dorothy said, coldly, 'but at any rate for my part I would rather that he did not meddle any more in my affairs.'

'Hulloa! hulloa!' Mr. Singleton exclaimed, 'what is in the wind now, Dorothy? I thought you and Ned Hampton were sworn friends, and next to yourself, Ned has always stood very high in my regard. A nicer lad than he was I have not come across; I only wish he was master of the old place down there instead of his brother, who is by no means a popular character in the county; although, perhaps, that is his wife's fault rather than his own. What have you been quarrelling with him about? I should have thought that for a young fellow, after being six years from England, to give up everything for a month, and spend it in your service, was in itself a strong claim to your regard.'

'There has been no quarrel between Captain Hampton and myself,' Dorothy said, as coldly as before. 'I do not say that it was not kind of him to take the pains he did about my affairs; but he acknowledged that he had doubted me, and after that I do not wish him to trouble himself any further in the matter.'

'What nonsense, Dorothy,' her father said, warmly. 'Who could have helped doubting you under the circumstances? Why, without half the excuse, even I was inclined to doubt you for a moment. Levine doubted you; Danvers, though he has not said as much, no doubt took the same view; and even Singleton here, when he gave you, as he believed, that money, thought that you had got into some horrible scrape. Singleton could not disbelieve the evidence of his eyes, and you are not angry with him for it. Why should you be so with Hampton, who also believed the evidence of his eyes?'

'What was that, if I may ask?' Mr. Singleton said. 'I have heard nothing about that, and I am quite sure that Ned Hampton would not have doubted Dorothy without what he believed to be very strong evidence.'

'Well, Singleton, I will tell you, though I should not tell either Levine or Danvers, for it is undoubtedly the strongest piece of evidence against Dorothy. He went up to Islington late in the afternoon of the day when all this took place, to see if he could light upon that scoundrel Truscott, and he saw Truscott in close confabulation in a quiet street with the woman who came to your chambers, and whom he, like you, of course, took to be Dorothy. At that time neither he nor any one else knew of the jewel robbery, but naturally it struck him, as, of course, it would have struck every one, that Dorothy had got into some scrape, and that she had met that man to endeavour to persuade or bribe him to give up the letters, or, at any rate, to move, and so escape from the search we were making for him. Ned went out of town at once, and came back just about the time we heard of the jewel robbery. By that time he had, on thinking it over, concluded that his first idea was altogether erroneous, and when, at my wits' end, I told him of the jewel affair, he said at once it was absolutely impossible that Dorothy could have done such a thing, and that indeed it seemed to him a confirmation of the theory he had formed that some adventuress having a singular likeness to Dorothy was personating her. The idea had never occurred to me, and I was delighted on finding a possible explanation of what seemed to me a blank and absolute mystery. I consider that Dorothy is even more indebted to him for that suggestion than for the pains he took in trying to discover Truscott.'