“I will tell you all, then. I was an actress in London; my name was Fortescue. I was a celebrity at Covent Garden. It was there that I first met Captain Dudleigh. I need say no more about him than this: I loved him passionately, with a frenzy and a devotion that you can not understand, and my fate is this—that I love him yet. I know that he is a coward and a villain and a traitor, but even now I would be willing to die for him.”
The voice was different—how different!—and the tone and manner still more so. The careless “Little Dudleigh” had changed into a being of passion and ardor and fire. Edith tried to preserve an incredulous state of mind, but in vain. She could not help feeling that there was no acting here. This at least was real. This devoted love could not be feigned.
“He swore he loved me,” continued Miss Fortescue. “He asked me to be his wife. We were married.”
“Married!” cried Edith, in a tone of profoundest agitation.
“Yes,” said Miss Fortescue, solemnly, “we were married. But listen. I believed that the marriage was real. He told some story about his friends being unwilling—about his father, who, he said, would disown him if he found it out. He urged a private marriage, without any public announcement. He knew a young clergyman, he said, who would do him that favor. For my part I had not the slightest objection. I loved him too well to care about a formal wedding. So we were married in his rooms, with a friend of his for witness.
“He set up a modest little house, where we lived for about a year. At first my life was one of perfect happiness, but gradually I saw a change coming over him. He was terribly in debt, and was afraid of utter ruin. From hints that dropped from him, I began to suspect that he meditated some sort of treachery toward me. Then, for the first time, I was alarmed at the privacy of our marriage. Still, I was afraid to say any thing to him, for fear that it might hasten any treachery toward me which he might meditate. I loved him as dearly as ever, but I found out that he was base and unprincipled, and felt that he was capable of any thing. I had to content myself with watching him, and at the same time tried to be as cheerful as possible.
“At length he heard about you, and came to Dalton. His father sent him, he said. I followed him here. At first he was angry, but I persuaded him to take me as an assistant. He did not want to be known at the Hall, for he wished to see first what could be done with Wiggins. He made me disguise myself as a man, and so I called myself Lieutenant Dudleigh. He went to Dalton Hall, and discovered that the porter was some old criminal who had done his crime on the Dudleigh estates—poaching, I think, or murder, or both. On seeing Wiggins, he was able to obtain some control over him—I don't know what. He never would tell me.
“By this time I found out what I had all along suspected—that he came here for your sake. He was terribly in debt. A dark abyss lay before him. He began to feel me to be an incumbrance. He began to wish that he was a free man, so that he might marry you. I saw all this with a grief that I can not tell.
“We made several calls on you. I went as his mother, Mrs. Mowbray.”
“Mrs. Mowbray! You!” exclaimed Edith, in wonder.