“I think with you,” said Dudleigh, after Edith had ended, “that the letter is a forgery. But what is difficult to understand is this apparent desertion of you. This may be accounted for, however, in one of two ways. First, Wiggins may actually have seen her, and frightened her in some way. You say she is timid. The other explanation of her silence is that she may be ill.”
“Ill!” exclaimed Edith, mournfully.
“It may be so.”
“May she not all this time have been trying to rescue me, and been baffled?”
Dudleigh smiled.
“Oh no. If she had tried at all you would have heard something about it before this; something would certainly have been done. The claim of Wiggins would have been contested in a court of law. Oh no; she has evidently done nothing. In fact, I think that, sad as it may seem to you, there can be no doubt about her illness. You say she left you here. No doubt she felt terrible anxiety. The next day she could not see you. Her love for you, and her anxiety, would, perhaps, be too much for her. She may have been taken home ill.”
Edith sighed. The picture of Miss Plympton's grief was too much for her.
“At any rate,” said she, “if I can't find any friends—if Sir Lionel is gone, and poor dear auntie is ill, I can be free. I can help nurse her. Any life is better than this; and I can put my case in the hands of the lawyers.”
“You are, of course, well supplied with money,” said Dudleigh, carelessly.
“Money?”