Though she was walking on beside her companion, Rachel looked on the point of fainting.
'My darling, you must sit down; you do look very ill. I forgot my promise about Mark Wylder. How stupid I have been! and perhaps I have distressed you.'
'No, Dorcas, I am pretty well; but I have been ill, and I am a little tired; and, Dorcas, I don't deny it, I am amazed, you tell me such things. That letter of attorney, or whatever it is, must not be acted upon. It is incredible. It is all horrible wickedness. Mark Wylder's fate is dreadful, and Stanley is the mover of all this. Oh! Dorcas, darling, I wish I could tell you everything. Some day I may be—I am sick and terrified.'
They had sat down, by this time, side by side, on the crisp bank. Each lady looked down, the one in suffering, the other in thought.
'You are better, darling; are not you better?' said Dorcas, laying her hand on Rachel's, and looking on her with a melancholy gaze.
'Yes, dear, better—very well'—answered Rachel, looking up but without an answering glance at her cousin.
'You blame your brother, Rachel, in this affair.'
'Did I? Well—maybe—yes, he is to blame—the miserable man—whom I hate to think of, and yet am always thinking of—Stanley well knows is not in a state to do it.'
'Don't you think, Rachel, remembering what I have confided to you, that you might be franker with me in this?'
'Oh, Dorcas! don't misunderstand me. If the secret were all my own—Heaven knows, hateful as it is, how boldly I would risk all, and throw myself on your fidelity or your mercy—I know not how you might view it; but it is different, Dorcas, at least for the present. You know me—you know how I hate secrets; but this is not mine—only in part—that is, I dare not tell it—but may be soon free—and to us all, dear Dorcas, a woful, woful, day will it be.'