“Oh, Miss Tuttle, what are you crying about?” she sighed, curiously. “Is it true, then, that he made me—promise to—to”—
“To marry Giles Bennett; is that what you mean? Yes, he says you promised to marry that wretch to-morrow. Oh, oh, oh, this will break my heart!” and poor Miss Tuttle and Leola, clasped in each other’s arms, mixed their tears together.
When they grew a little calmer Leola explained how the promise had been extorted from her by appeals to her gratitude.
“Oh, do you think it can be true? Am I only a pauper, taken from the almshouse, for charity’s sake—perhaps nameless, too?” she sobbed, bitterly.
Miss Tuttle could give her no comfort, for although she had been Leola’s governess from the age of three, she had never fathomed the mystery about her charge. But she tried to reassure her, saying:
“Do not brood over it, dear girl, it is possibly one of old Hermann’s false tales to coerce you into obedience. I should sooner believe that he has appropriated to his own use money that belonged to you, and thinks he can make it up to you this way.”
“To live with Giles Bennett as his wife—that old Falstaff of a man!—I loathe the prospect!” sobbed Leola.
“While I envy you with all my heart!” exclaimed the governess. “Oh, Leola, how strangely fate plays at cross purposes with human beings! How gladly I would change places with you and become his wife!”
“Oh, that you could, dear soul!” Leola answered, and neither one slept that night for the tumult of their thoughts—Leola’s all grief and repugnance, Miss Tuttle’s all envy and wounded love—and when the sunshine of the July morning peeped into the windows their faces were haggard and pain-drawn, and both felt as if the day of execution had dawned, for Hermann had told the governess to prepare Leola to be married at sundown that evening, when the carriage would be waiting to convey her at once to her new home.
With heavy eyes they looked into each other’s faces, wondering how they could escape their doom, and Leola cried, desperately: