Surely this was but a feeble ideal of the punishment due to a great crime which had deprived me of everything that made my life worth living. But I was now bereft of even this small satisfaction, for I had, for the sake of Lady Elizabeth, pledged myself to do nothing that would reflect discredit upon her family. I had even gone so far as to repudiate all my suspicions, and so long as she lived I must do nothing to re-awaken the terrors which had been tormenting her of late.
Does any one doubt that I found this sacrifice of my personal inclinations very hard to bear? or that it was not a real sacrifice to leave my enemies to gloat unrestrainedly at the success of their evil plotting? Or do they imagine that the feelings I harbored were unjustifiable? If so, let them imagine themselves in my position. Let them picture all that I had lost and suffered, and contrast my lot with what would have been my condition had the earl’s life not terminated when it did. True, I had as yet not the slightest practical evidence to support my opinion of the culpability of the new earl and his fiancée; but as my personal conviction never admitted the slightest doubt on that score, I found its virtual abandonment all the harder to bear, though nothing would now make me disregard Lady Elizabeth’s wishes. And this I mention, not for the sake of demonstrating my powers of self-sacrifice, but to show how gratefully I reciprocated the kindness of my stepmother, and to show how my heart hungered for love, since the lavishment of a little of it upon me had power to arouse in me a feeling so passionate as to be almost akin to worship.
And now I was about to leave, probably forever, the one being who cared for me. Small wonder that the hard feelings which had hitherto enabled me to keep my composure should break down, and that the quick tears of utter lonesomeness should chase each other down my pale cheeks as I hurriedly gathered my belongings together, and began to pack them in the substantial trunks which had been provided by Lady Elizabeth to hold the trousseau with which her loving liberality had provided me.
“Excuse me, Miss Dora, but my lady has sent me to see if I can be of any use to you. You are packing everything up? Then pray let me do it for you.”
I looked up through my tears, and saw Agnes, my stepmother’s maid, standing ready to relieve me of my task. She was in such evident sympathy with me that at sight of her kindly face my last shred of composure left me, and I wept in such an abandonment of grief as only a feeling of utter desolation can produce. Agnes was frightened at the violence of my emotion and did her best to console me. But I presently became calmer, and thanking her for the trouble she was taking, gladly availed myself of her help in packing my boxes. I felt no hesitation in taking everything that belonged to me, for all I had worth having was due to the generosity of Lady Elizabeth or of her father. To my own father I owed nothing of which I was now possessed, the last item of the unbecoming garments which he had so grudgingly bestowed upon me having disappeared long ago.
In another half an hour I was ready to go, and a few moments later the cab for which I had sent was at the door. As I stepped into it I glanced at the upper windows of the house which was no longer a home for me. I saw Lady Elizabeth, who had come to her window to wave me a smiling good-by. Evidently no one had yet told her that I was permanently banished from my father’s house. I smiled and kissed my hand to her, resolved that her last glimpse of me should be as pleasant as possible. Then my eyes sought the level of the drawing-room windows, to see—what? My sister standing there by the side of the Earl of Greatlands, both of them displaying the greatest delight at my departure, and both of them casting contemptuous glances of triumph on a poor, homeless girl whose presence near them was a continual reproach.
But their malevolence did not get all the satisfaction it sought, for my glance wandered swiftly upward again, and rested on my stepmother’s smiling face, until I was driven out of sight altogether, with such apparent unconsciousness of their presence that they could not know I had seen them. And thus I entered upon the battle of life on my own account.
CHAPTER V.
“A maiden’s fancies.”
In spite of the turmoil of mind under which I had labored since my interview with my father, I had already formed somewhat definite plans for my future.