“I see,” said Brownie, with curling lips; “and if I proclaim the fact that a young man by the name of Herbert Randal, who has also been kept a close prisoner for over twenty years by a heartless mother’s decree, liberated me, it is going to make it very uncomfortable for Lady Randal. Pardon me,” she added, flushing a lovely color, and dropping the scorn out of her voice, “but I honestly believe the time has come when it is right that the world should know of your existence, and that you should know something of your kindred and the world in which you live,” she concluded, indignantly.
“I sometimes go to a little old chapel, which incloses one side of the little court of which I have spoken. I found an entrance to it through the vaults, and I sometimes go there to read. I might have escaped long ago in that way had it not been for my tutor, whom I knew would be reduced to the most abject poverty if deprived of his situation, and so pity has kept me here.”
“But you might go out and assert your rights. Of course, a portion of all this property would fall to you, and then you could see that he did not suffer,” interposed Brownie.
“Yes, I might do that, and perhaps thereby gain the hatred of my brother. I want his love—oh, I crave the love of some human being!” he cried, almost passionately.
“He has sent you a friend at all events, if you will allow me to be such,” Brownie said, impulsively, and reaching out her hand to him, while two bright tears rolled over her flushed cheeks and dropped upon her black dress.
“Ah! then this is the beginning of good things for me, and I will accept it as a precious omen,” he replied, clasping her hand warmly, and his eyes lighted with a deep, and sudden joy. “I do not mean to complain,” he added, a moment after, “for I have many things to be thankful for, and I thank my Maker every day that He gave me this ugly body rather than a blunted intellect. I have my books, and moderately good health, though that would be better, I think, if I could be more in the air. But I try to feel that all my privations are sent to teach me some great lesson in life, and fit me for better things.”
Brownie sat in deep and perplexed thought for several minutes. There were evidently only two things which she could do; either leave the Hall altogether and hide, as Mrs. Coolidge had proposed, letting her disappearance still remain a mystery, or boldly face them all, and let the guilty suffer for their own wrong-doing.
Herbert Randal read something of Brownie’s thoughts in her troubled face.
“I do not see that there is but one course for you to pursue, Miss Douglas,” he said, “and that is to explain everything in a straightforward way. Perhaps if you could conceal the fact from all but the immediate family that it was Lady Randal’s son who released you, it might save some scandal.”
“Do you not think it right and just that that fact be made known?” Brownie asked, gravely, adding: “I shall never rest content until I know you are at liberty to go and come at your own will and pleasure, and have your rights.”