There was no necessity to write, for Ned Hampton travelled to England as fast as his letter would have done. He telegraphed his arrival as soon as he landed and followed his message immediately. Ned Hampton always said that his wife married him without his even proposing to her. No proposal indeed was necessary; the matter was settled the moment he went into the room where she was awaiting him, and she ran into his arms without a word. It was not until they were at dinner that the object of Ned's long absence was alluded to. Then, when the servants had left the room, he said, 'I have brought home an engagement present for you, Dorothy,' and he handed her Linda's confession.
Mr. Hawtrey never knew the truth as to the person who had played the part of Dorothy's double, and, contented with his daughter being completely cleared, asked no questions concerning her. Dorothy, however, was much more curious, and was with difficulty put off until she became Mrs. Hampton. She was very pitiful over the story when it was told to her.
'Oh, Ned,' she cried, 'how dreadful; and it might just as well have been I who was carried away and brought up in that misery. Of course, she was not to be blamed. How could she have been different? It is wonderful she should have been as nice as you say she was. Of course, I shall write her a long letter. I don't know about keeping it from father; but perhaps it is best, as she was such a little baby when he lost her, and it would be an awful grief to him to think how she suffered.'
Dorothy wrote very frequently, and letters came back telling of Linda's quiet, happy life; but Dorothy was not fully contented until three years later she learned that her sister had married a thriving young settler on a neighbouring farm, and that there was every prospect that the trials and troubles of her early life would be atoned for by happiness in the future.
The year after Dorothy's marriage she was delighted to hear from Ada Fortescue that she had become engaged to Captain Armstrong, and she and Ned went up to town specially to be present at the wedding.
Years afterwards the sisters met, for after Mr. Hawtrey's death nothing would satisfy Dorothy but a voyage across the Atlantic, and a journey by the newly constructed line to California. The likeness between the sisters had increased, for the hard look in Linda's face had died away, and had been succeeded by one of quiet happiness, and Captain Hampton declared that he should hardly know them apart, and that Linda was now indeed Dorothy's Double.
THE END.
NEW LIBRARY NOVELS.
THE ONE TOO MANY. By E. Lynn Linton. 3 vols.