“Thank fortune!” Lady Linton breathed, most fervently. “Of course,” she added, a guilty flush rising to her forehead as she suddenly realized how heartless her expression sounded, “of course, I do not mean that I am thankful to have Cousin William suffer such injuries, but I am immeasurably relieved to have my brother called away just at this time, and the longer he stays, the better I shall be pleased.”
She heard nothing more for a week, when there came another letter stating that Mr. Heath was slightly improved, but still unable to be moved, and quite a sufferer. There were some more particulars, too, regarding the accident.
Lord Norton, an aged friend of the Duke of Falmouth—the nobleman to whom Mr. Heath was private secretary—was very ill, and he had sent for his grace to confide to him a historical work upon which he had been engaged for more than two years. It was nearly completed, only a few more chapters to be copied, and Lord Norton, feeling that he should not live to see it published, desired his friend to take charge of it, finish it, and secure its publication.
The duke readily consented to put the work through; but, as his eyesight would not permit him to do very much in the way of either reading or writing, he suggested that his secretary, Mr. Heath, who was eminently qualified, should get it ready for press, and he himself would attend to its publication.
Lord Norton was pleased with this proposition, and Mr. Heath consented to take hold of the book at once, hoping to complete the copying while his lordship’s strength endured to oversee the work and make important suggestions for his benefit.
Of course, this necessitated numerous visits to the invalid, and it was while returning from one of these that Mr. Heath’s horse took fright, causing the accident and putting a stop to the project which lay so near the old lord’s heart.
Sir William wrote that the disappointment of both the Duke of Falmouth and Lord Norton was so great that he had himself offered to take his cousin’s place and finish the copying of the book, while he remained at Middlewich in attendance upon his injured relative and his family.
Lady Linton was jubilant after receiving this letter, for it was evident that Sir William would be detained at Middlewich for quite a while; meantime she would exert all the cunning of which she was mistress to ruin the woman whom she both feared and hated, and thus plant an insurmountable barrier between Rupert and his beautiful fiancée.
With this mad scheme in mind, she ascertained Mrs. Alexander’s address, and boldly went one morning to face her enemy in her own domain.
But she was bitterly disappointed to learn that she was not in town. She was away on a little trip, the landlady told her; she might be gone a week longer; she might not return even at the end of that time. “The rooms were paid for in advance for three months, so the woman had not asked when they would return, nor whither they were going, but she had heard the young lady say something about a visit to Edinburgh; possibly they had gone there.”